To Heal Himself
by The Queen of Mean
Summary: Almost five quick years have elapsed since the Battle of Hogwarts and the death of Severus Snape. But he had cheated Death, escaped to begin a new life, and now continued to rob Death of victims on a near daily basis. Dr. Severus Prince, MD. At your service. SS/OC female (appearances by other HP characters)
1. A Note from the Author

Welcome to the new story!

I have been writing on this website since roughly 2009-2010 when I published my first Joker story. It was garbage so I took it down! Haha But that marked the start of my love for fan fiction. I'm now 30 years old, a veterinary nurse and obviously, a very big fan of everything Harry Potter, most specifically, Severus Snape. He is the perfect anti-hero to me, the dark hero we all deserved, but not the one we needed. I forgive JK Rowling for killing off his character, but that doesn't mean I have to accept it! Haha

In this story, we see a post-Battle of Hogwarts Severus Snape who...well, you'll see. Gotta read to find out! (I suck at summaries…)

A few notes:

**I own only the characters which I have added myself. Everything else, goes to the most epic- J.K. Rowling and the Wizarding World she created for us**

My mental image of the Severus in this story is somewhat Alan Rickman but not exactly. Let me defend myself by saying that I ADORE Alan Rickman as Snape in the movies, but the Severus Snape that I am writing about, the one I'm picturing, looks like the picture I've set as much profile picture on here. Quite a lot like Alan but much younger. So please bear this in mind with my descriptions of him.

For my newer readers, I tend to write a bit on the dark side. There may be some language, some sexual content, some alcohol/drug use, the typical 'darker' stuff. I like fluff, but Severus Snape is a dark, misunderstood character and I like him that way.

We can expect to see more characters from HP in the future of the story, along with the arrival of an OC, and the sexy romance-y stuff that typically follows that. So please, let me know what you think! And as always, feel free to drop me a private message with any comments or questions!

VERY VERY lastly, I would like to say that my life is very hectic (I work full time in a vet hospital and have other social obligations) but I have made a PERMANENT return to the world of writing fan fiction and I plan to see this story grow quite long. So stick around and I promise I won't let you down!

But without further ado, I give you-


	2. A Day in the Life

The third floor apartment on Aberdeen Street was almost entirely unremarkable. Everything that could be considered 'normal' could be found here- furniture, a kitchen, in which a refrigerator made ice noisily. There was a small dining area, complete with a mahogany table, atop which sat dozens of books, pads of paper, pens, scattered far and wide across the glass table top. The table was so completely cluttered that it rather appeared to hold these items suspended in mid-air. The apartment was lined along one wall with large floor to ceiling bookshelves. There was a couch, a small balcony and a fireplace. On the surface, at first glance, this apartment seemed quite normal, perhaps even a little boring.

However, several of the bookshelves contained small, inconspicuous items. Trinkets, one could call them. Random decorations. One particularly interesting object was something that looked like a spinning top, touching the surface of the shelf with only the very tip of its point. It had remained motionless for nearly 5 years., balancing ever-steady on its point. Another of the shelves bore multi-sized jars of liquid of varying colors, all containing creatures of different sizes and shapes. The odd specimens floated, apparently dead, within them. These would be claimed 'fake' and 'just models', if ever the need arose to explain their presence.

A low groan echoed in the apartment from the bedroom and large, lazy hand flew out from beneath a mound of blankets on the bed to flop heavily over a glowing device, vibrating noisily on a nightstand. The device stopped immediately but then disappeared beneath the bed covers. One bleary, black eye opened, squinting in protest at the bright light inches from his nose. He glanced at the numbers on the screen and sighed, sliding his thumb across the glass to answer the call. The phone met the side of his face.

"Yes?"

His voice croaked out of him several octaves lower than normal. There was a pause on the other end of the line.

"Doctor Prince?" The voice sounded breathy with apprehension.

Severus sighed, pushing his thumb and forefinger into his eyes. " _Speaking,"_ he answered testily.

"I'm so sorry to bother you," the female voice continued in a rushed manner, as if hurrying to start, and end the conversation as quickly as possible. "-but Doctor Oakes is requesting an emergency consult. Can you take the call?"

Severus' eyebrow arched sharply as he pulled the phone away from his ear, to glance at the time on the screen: _4:08_ am. He withheld a groan with great difficulty. "Yes, fine," he answered, pushing his hair out of his face. "Put him on."

There was a faint crackle on the other end of the phone call, just before a very loud, very _awake_ voice boomed, "Sev! Hope I didn't wake ya!" Severus rolled his eyes, pushing himself into a sitting position. He couldn't bring himself to leave his blankets yet... He might not have to go...

"What can I do for you, Mark?" he asked flatly, refusing the conversation to be steered aside by stupid comments. There was a long, dramatic exhale on the other end of the call; Severus could very clearly imagine his shorter, brown-haired colleague leaning back in a cushy office chair, clicking his pen.

"Oh, I've got a guy here, thirty-five year old, white, presented to ER with trouble breathing, chest pain-"

Severus leaned forward, eyes still closed, now rubbing his forehead steadily as the cogs of his brain churned back into motion. "Obese?" he asked. The sound of papers rustled in the background of the call.

"Nope," Oakes replied. "Blood pressure normal too." He added this hastily, accurately predicting the next question.

Severus' eyebrows contracted into a frown.

"Heart disease in the family?"

"Nope."

Severus could hear Oakes' triumphant grin through the phone and he rolled his eyes, finally conceding defeat. He pulled the blankets back, swinging his legs out of the bed.

"I'm absolutely dying in suspense," Severus growled into the phone, cracking his back a few times as he crossed to the walk-in closet. He imagined someone dangling hooked bait in front of an exasperated, tired fish who had already figured out the jig.

"Guy just had a massive heart attack in triage," Oakes stated with the air of someone who had been bursting with this information, but had also rehearsed how to say it to greatest effect.

Severus pulled the phone away from his head to pull on a black long-sleeved shirt and only pressed it again to his face to say, "See you soon."

The phone thudded against the wooden top of his dresser as he abandoned it in his search through the dark for a pair of scrub pants, of any color, he did not really care. Dark gray seemed the most readily available. He was sure they were wrinkled and disheveled, but the hospital was quite an empty place at four in the morning and on this little sleep, there was only so much effort he could put into how he looked. For good measure, however, he stepped into the bathroom, flipped on the light, squinting madly under the glare, and surveyed himself in the mirror. Not as bad as he had thought.

A very light shadow had grown in along his jawline and the lower portions of his cheeks, causing his lean face to appear slightly drawn, even gaunt. He frowned at his own chin's reflection, rubbing a hand across the stubble there, tilting his head back and to the side. This small movement exposed the nape of his neck. His eyes flickered downward to the trailing ends of the scars there. His entire body paused for one portion of a millisecond, if only to register their existence, before his gaze moved again to his 4 o'clock-in-the-morning-shadowed face. Foregoing any effort to rectify this, he instead reached for the thin elastic band around his wrist to pull his black hair into a low knot at the back of his head.

The TV continued to flicker silently through an early morning news segment, illuminating his otherwise dark bedroom in odd flashes of colored light. But as Severus exited the bathroom and walked past, it shut off, the screen wiped immediately blank, the room cast into darkness. At that same moment, a light in the kitchen flicked on ahead of him. Coffee would already be sitting in a cardboard cup, hot, black and complete with lid, when he got there.

One pair of black tennis shoes later, Severus was headed through the door to the apartment, out into the cool, early morning air. Though for a moment, he hesitated on the threshold, keys in hand, staring blankly into space; where was his stethoscope? He had come home earlier so tired, he couldn't remember where he had last seen it. An instant later, a hazy, fleeting image flashed within his mind; a black Littmann stethoscope lay curled on the carpeted floor of the passenger seat of a car. "Right," he grumbled aloud, locking the door with his key and passing his hand over the number, sealing his protective wards.

Due to the early hour, the traffic on the street was not bad at all. As his car carried him along a normally busy highway, Severus leaned back in the leather seat, allowing the seat warmers to do their job. Driving was one of the few Muggle customs he had truly come to enjoy. There was something to be said for getting into a quiet, comfortable space after a hard day and having a chance to cool off, regain some composure before getting home. Sure, he could Apparate to the hospital and back in roughly one and a half seconds, and did so fairly regularly. But whenever there was a chance, whenever he simply felt like it, Severus liked to drive. Learning how to do it in America had been an absolute horror, but all the same.

The front doors of the emergency room slid open ahead of him as he approached. He spared a glance at the small motion sensor overhead as he walked beneath it; that was another thing that had taken some getting used to. Once, out of idle curiosity, he had tried opening them with a cough-disguised Charm from the reception desk, at the exact moment an older man walked forward and triggered the motion sensor. The doors had slid sideways as they always did, but with such violence and force that every single pane of glass shattered and rained down on the entrance to the emergency room, around the ankles of the shocked and startled Muggle. Severus could very clearly remember clearing his throat and returning his attention to the records he had been signing, while security and janitorial workers ran past. The doors had needed to be entirely replaced and took nearly a week to do so. From that point, Severus kept his experiments with Muggle technology, especially in a hospital, to a strict minimum.

There was a smattering of people in the waiting room as he entered, but he ignored them, along with the night receptionist and security guard seated at the large circular desk. Both ignored him in equal measure as he passed, his long strides taking him directly to the swinging double doors at the back of the atrium. Beyond these doors lay Severus' new territory, his chosen element. The breeze from the doors might as well have been the very same from that of the dungeon doors at Hogwarts. Instead of heavily scented air, thick with the fumes of potions, he was greeted with crisp coolness, cold and sterile with the smell of alcohol and bleach. Oftentimes, there was another pungent ingredient to this mix, like blood, vomit or feces... This never really bothered him much; he had taught and lived among teenagers for quite a few years.

Tonight, all was quiet. There were a few nurses moving around, but nothing about their demeanor would suggest any pressing case or situation. Severus turned an immediate right from the double doors and found himself at the main nurses' station.

Dr. Mark Oakes was sitting low in a rolling desk chair, leaned back with the soles of his tennis shoes against the edge of the counter. He was laughing lazily about something one of the nurses had just said, absentmindedly tugging and releasing the retractable lanyard for his identification badge. He tugged the badge downward, caught sight of Severus and immediately released it, causing it to fling upward and snap at his neck. His laugh turned to a cough while he winced and struggled to move the chair as Severus rolled his eyes, turning sideways to pass behind it.

"Oh, please don't stop on my account," he drawled, dropping his stethoscope onto the desk with a loud thud. His cup of coffee followed suit, though rather more gently. "You should definitely keep that up. People willtotally think you're a real doctor."

Oakes laughed, replacing his feet on the desk and rolling back far enough to stretch his legs all the way out. "I'm the only attending tonight and it's dead slow," he boasted, crossing one ankle over the other very dramatically. He nodded his head toward the back corner of the station, where the nurse he had been talking to had been typing something on a computer.

"Kelly and I were just talking about the new head admin. Apparently she starts today, right, Kel-?" Oakes had been turning his seat as he spoke, until he saw that the nurse had already fled the station several moments prior, ducking past the tall, black-haired doctor on her way. One of Severus' eyebrows arched slowly into a curve.

"Fascinating," he commented dryly, watching with disinterest as Oakes' neck craned to see which direction the nurse had gone. "You still wanted that so-called 'emergency' consult, did you not?"

" _Did you not?"_ Oakes mimicked under his breath, using a very low, very fake-sounding English accent. He lowered his legs from the desk and leaned forward to rifle through the messy jumble of charts before him. His eyes glanced up as another nurse walked past the station."You know the nurses in here kinda hate you, right?" Oakes cast an upward glance at him as Severus took a sip of his coffee.

"Good," he stated. And he meant it. He set his coffee down and accepted the chart from Oakes, who had finally located it among his mess. Eyes zoomed across the page, seeking out the information most useful to him...of which, there was very little. He pulled a rolling chair from beneath the desk and sat down, still reading the chart. "So he presented with dyspnea, angina, normal pressure, good values..." he murmured aloud, neither wondering nor caring whether Oakes could hear him. Consultations with Dr. Prince were very rarely a two-way conversation. Severus stood again abruptly, flipping back and forth between two small slips of paper within the chart. His eyebrows arched again as he looked at the difference between the two nearly identical slips of blood reports.

"Doctor Oakes," he began. The other doctor gave a start as though he had forgotten he was there when Severus dropped the open file onto the desk with a satisfying slap. "Did you notice that Mister Bryant's platelets _and_ PCV dropped by about 45% within an hour? _After_ a major cardiac event?"

Oakes sat up straight, pulling the chart toward him to see the values for himself. He nodded fervently, pointing at the figures to which Severus had been referring. "Yeah, which is why I did an echo, _Doctor_ Prince. Everything looked normal."

Severus glared down at Oakes for a few moments before, somewhat defeated, he sat down again. The tips of his fingers met in front of his nose. His mind was whirring. This was just another reason he so enjoyed the field of medicine. It stretched his brain to the limit and none of it, _none of it,_ had anything to do with magical interference. Except that which only he provided. Muggle medicine was like playing chess blindfolded...However, Severus had learned how to see through blindfolds at the age of about sixteen.

"I don't believe it," he said abruptly, opening his eyes, although he could not remember closing them. Blinking at the sudden light, he reached for the phone closest to him and began dialing the code for 'page all'.

Beside him, Oakes groaned, tossing his hands in the air and rolling his eyes. "Oh, come _on._ You don't really think I missed something, do you?"

Severus paused, his finger hovering above the button labeled with a white number 8. His eyes rolled slightly upward before he nodded. "Yeah," He felt the corners of his lips turn up in a sneer. "I really do."

A moment later, there was a beep and he could hear his own quiet, deep voice echoed faintly throughout the emergency room at the other various nurses' stations. "Attention, _staff,_ I understand that the majority of you are due to go home very soon, _"_ he began, glancing over as Oakes scowled at him. "However, thanks to Dr. Oakes inability to do even the slightest thing right, two of you lucky, talented individuals will be tasked with bringing Mister Bryant to cardiology suite A."

The phone met the receiver and immediately, murmurs of dissent reached their ears from the nurses scattered through the various stations. Severus rose from the desk, attaching his own identification badge to the neck of his black long sleeved shirt, smirking in what he imagined was a very satisfied sort of way. He took his stethoscope as well and slung it around his neck before sliding the file slowly out from beneath the weight of Oakes' hand. However, as he turned to leave the nurses' station, Severus paused and knelt down slightly, just as Oakes found a reason to pull his phone out of his pocket and begin fiddling with it, a new frown on his face. "Sorry...what was it you said about the nurses hating me?"

Within a few minutes, Severus entered the dimly lit cardiology suite A, located several floors above the emergency room. His patient had already arrived and was being seen to by a pair of tired, grumpy-looking nurses. Cords and wires were attached to various circular pads on his chest and abdomen, all connected to a machine on a rolling stand, which displayed and recorded the man's heartbeat. Severus stared at it from a shadowy corner of the room, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes narrowed on the thin line of the ECG tracing. _No abnormalities._

Once the man had been covered in a blanket and asked if he was comfortable, Severus stepped forward. "Thank you, ladies. That will do," he said, approaching the table as the nurses exited quickly. Most of the staff in the hospital knew by now that Dr. Prince preferred to do his own diagnostic tests without their aid. From his periphery, he noticed Doctor Oakes step into the small windowed office that looked out into the suite, watching. He ignored this and took a seat on the short rolling stool next to the table, turning to face the man lying there. "Mister Bryant, I'm Dr. Prince," He began, pausing to watch as the patient's eyes flickered downward to the scars on his neck. Severus ignored this with ease; he was well used to it by now. "I understand you've been through quite an ordeal tonight."

The man nodded, exhaling a shaky breath as he fiddled with the patient ID band around his wrist. He gave a halfhearted chuckle. "Yeah...never would've thought," he murmured. "I had no idea- I mean...a heart attack at my age..."

Severus nodded, leaning forward to pull a monitor into position before him, at the same time picking up a small round probe from the same machine. "Mister Bryant, I assure you, most physicians would agree that the best place to have a heart attack is in a hospital," he supplied dully, though he heard his patient grunt an appreciative laugh. Severus looked up again, from where he had been applying warm jelly to the end of the receiving probe. "Now, from what I understand, Dr. Oakes already performed this test, yes?"

David shrugged, glancing up and slightly back at the echocardiogram screen, though it still remained quite blank, since Severus had not placed the probe on his chest yet. "Well, yeah, I mean...he was here but an ultrasound tech I think actually- did it. He watched the screen and told her what to do."

Slowly, Severus turned his head toward the window of the office, his eyes narrowing into near slits as he glared at Oakes through the glass. He knew there was a microphone in the room and that the other doctor could hear every word that was being said. The corner of Severus' mouth curved upward in a very snide smirk as Oakes shifted his weight and looked away quickly, one hand in his pocket to retrieve his phone. He turned away from the window to answer a call that Severus was almost entirely positive did not exist.

However, the patient on the table seemed anxious. The exchange of glances had not gone unnoticed. Mister Bryant rose slightly from the table, his eyes fluttering between Severus and the office window several times. "What? What is it?" he asked. "Do you think he missed something?"

"I'm sure Dr. Oakes was thorough," Severus lied. The receiver met the middle of the man's chest and he pushed on it, firmly moving the man back so that he was once again reclined on the table. "-though a second set of eyes never hurts in a case like this..." The second portion of his statement came out slow and deep, trailed off as his attention was withdrawn from conversation and onto the echo monitor. The fuzzy outline of a beating heart was now displayed there. The sound of his atria and ventricles filled the room, pumping away steadily- _lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub._

Severus scowled at the screen as he slid the receiver around the man's chest, revealing different areas of the heart, pausing occasionally to watch them contract and relax. Everything looked normal; perhaps Dr. Oakes had not made an error. Fighting his mounting disappointment, he continued to look, moving the probe further up the man's chest until his aorta became visible on the screen. His eyebrows had continued to curve, deepening the faint lines in his face.

"Dr. Prince-" Mr. Bryant spoke suddenly. Severus responded with a grunt to indicate that he was listening, however distractedly he may have been doing so. The man continued, and the hike in his heart rate was audible throughout the room as he spoke. "Am I gonna die?" His voice was quieter, sheepish, as though he found his own question as childish as Severus did.

His fingers moved the probe again. "Eventually," he answered in an absentminded, slow drawl. A heavy moment or two later, he seemed to realize that this patient may not take so kindly to his particular brand of dry humor. He looked away from the screen with only his eyes, making momentary eye contact with Mr. Bryant. A hazy, swimming vision of two very young children, a boy and a girl, swam to the forefront of his mind. He broke the faint connection, returning his attention to the screen."Soon, however? I think not."

After a few more minutes of total silence, aside from the steady _lub-dub_ of the beating heart, Severus exhaled through his nose, his feeling of defeat creeping over him like a wave of spiders. If he had come all the way here for nothing at four in the morning... However, there was _one_ last thing he could try, the thing he _always_ tried, whenever the situation allowed it, whenever he was alone. It was one of his favorite inventions.

Careful to keep the probe in place upon the man's chest, Severus brought his other hand up as well, placing the pads of two fingertips next to the receiver. The slick gel was warm and allowed his fingers to follow the path of the echo probe, sliding across skin easily. He slid his eyes closed, and there, as crisp and clear as if he had actually opened the man's chest cavity, Severus could see his heart, projected like a movie on the inside of his eyelids. A healthy heart, contrary to how it was usually portrayed, was a rosy pink color, lined and streaked with thousands of veins and arteries, all supplying blood to the most important muscles of the human body. It had been incredibly interesting to learn in-depth human anatomy, simply by tracing his fingers over his own body with his eyes blissfully closed. He had traced and memorized every single detail about a human body, all while lying comfortably in his massive bed in the dungeons of Hogwarts. Along with the aid of an entire library of books. Not only had this prepared him for his new life but had been a crucial step in his plan to cheat death.

However, in the present, he was absolutely sure the patient was wondering what sort of good it would do his doctor to have his eyes closed while doing a very _visual_ test, but patients typically did not question a doctor's methods, as long as the outcome was favorable.

His fingers ascended once again to the top of the heart, where the powerful aorta lay, pulsing steadily as it pumped blood from the heart to the rest of the body. Severus' forehead furrowed, his fingers several inches away from the probe, which he had forgotten to move. Damn, he needed to sleep.

"So," Mister Bryant again shattered the excellent silence. "Where are you from? Your accent is -"

"Sh," Severus hissed. He had seen something.

His fingers had reached a spot several inches above the heart, nearly to his collarbone. There, flapping neatly in the breeze of bodily fluid and the flow of blood, was a tiny, but complete tear in the largest artery of the human body. This was the artery, that if ruptured or severed, led to death within minutes. Fortunately, the laceration in Mister Bryant's was minuscule, nearly undetectable. But if left untreated, it was very likely Dr. Prince would be seeing him again sooner rather than later.

He took care to slide his eyes open steadily but slowly; going from microscope-internal vision (he hadn't thought of a name for it yet) to normal reality too quickly made him dizzy and disoriented. Mister Bryant was looking alarmed, perhaps at his shushing, but Severus was watching the screen, too tired to suppress a grin when he located the tear in the aorta with the probe alone. It was there, faint but visible, on the black and white echo screen. He had proof for whatever documentation or questions they might present him- perfect.

Mister Bryant had apparently seen the look on Dr. Prince's face and he turned full sideways on the table, tilting his head back to see the screen for himself. "What is it?" he asked.

Victorious, Severus felt a bit more patient, and he turned the screen so the man could both see and stay reclined. He moved the probe back to the location on his chest where the tear could be made visible, turning to point at the tiny artifact on the echo. "That, Mister Bryant, is why you're about to have open-heart surgery. Just the tiniest of nicks in your aorta, likely from some heart condition you already had when you so graciously went into cardiac arrest earlier," The entire time he had been speaking, a fresh look of terror stole over Mister Bryant's face and Severus sighed, hanging his shoulders. His eyes rolled to the ceiling as he replaced the probe on the machine. Draining the last of his small store of patience, he added "You'll be seeing a cardiac surgeon in less than an hour. I promise you," he locked eyes with Mister Bryant one last time and held out his hand. "You're going to go home."

He grasped his hand and shook it only long enough to see the expression of mingled confusion and relaxation cross his face before Severus motioned toward the adjoining office. Two nurses had come in a few minutes earlier and had been watching, clearly ready for this procedure to be over. They entered the suite and he approached one of them, accepting David's chart from her. The young woman glanced at her counterpart, who had clearly won some form of bet over who would have to speak with Dr. Prince. He ignored this.

"Mister Bryant will be needing to see Doctor Caine concerning the laceration in the posterior aspect of the aorta, medial, approximately between the third and fourth sternebrae..." His voice trailed off, having watched the entire time with decreasing hope as the nurse's expression went steadily more blank. "If you could," He began silkily, glancing at her name badge. "Miss. Rodgers, just to humor me, repeat back what I've just said to you?"

After a hastily charted notation in David Bryant's chart, signed _SP, MD,_ Severus was at last headed for the back exit of the hospital, his mind on his bed with a fierce longing. At times like this, Apparition was such a luxury and he was just considering slipping into a stairwell in the parking garage to Disapparate when the door ahead of him opened. An older woman appeared in the way, giving a slight jump and a squeal as he came to a mid-step halt several feet from her. The woman laughed, waving her hand airily and causing her colorful, dangling earrings to swing violently.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, you startled me!" She exclaimed, raising a heavily laden armful of books to show a thermos of coffee clutched in her multi-ringed fingers. "Probably made this a little too strong this morning!" A loud laugh most unsuited to her petite frame erupted out of her. Severus flinched; she was overwhelming.

"Indeed," he replied, stepping forward a few paces, holding to all hope that she would either continue on her way or let him pass. "Well, good morning." he murmured awkwardly, now making a blatant attempt at sliding past her into the parking garage. He had nearly made it, but with a dramatic gasp, the woman swung her hand out to grip his arm, her face alight, rapt with some sudden, new joy.

"Wait, hold on a second-" she began, reaching up to adjust her thickly framed glasses in a pantomime fashion that made his skin crawl. "You aren't Doctor Prince, are you?"

Severus' shoulders squared as he turned to face her fully in the doorway leading to the garage. "The very same," he answered, his black eyes carefully avoiding complete contact with hers; he focused on the glare from the lenses of her glasses. Why, he was not really sure.

"Oh, how _funny_!" She tapped him twice in the middle of his chest in a grandmotherly way. He found it rather off-putting. "I've heard so much about you, couldn't wait to meet you, and then I run smack into you!" Her eyes moved down to the neckline of his shirt, to the thin, trailing ends of his scars, but she looked away quickly, her odd smile never changing. She was breathing with her mouth open and Severus had numbly realized through the haze of exhaustion that this was the new hospital administrator Oakes had been talking about earlier. He felt his insides sink a little when he wondered how badly his reflection had deteriorated since four that morning when he last looked in a mirror. Probably pretty bad.

"Well, you're not headed out, are you?"

The stupidity of her question fell upon him with such force, Severus' brain jammed for several moments before he could come up with a respectful reply.

"Yes, unfortunately, I am," It was the best he could do.

"Oh," she replied, nodding her head again forcefully so her earrings rattled. "Late night. Gotcha. Well, tomorrow then! Go get some sleep."

"Exactly where I was headed," He gave a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder to the garage behind him, still holding the door open with the toe of his shoe. "Good morning."

And with that, he took off, not looking back, taking long strides, the hair on the back of his neck prickling. He could tell that she was still standing there, watching him through the window of the door he had let shut. He still did not look back, but instead, made it obvious that he was extracting his keys from his pocket as he walked toward his car to _drive_ home, definitely NOT vanish into thin air. Why his heart was suddenly thumping hard inside his chest, Severus was not sure. However, as he got into his car, he found himself no longer remotely interested in risking Apparation. Not with that woman so near.

He could not explain it, there was no rational reason for it. She had been perfectly pleasant, albeit boisterous and obnoxious, though Severus had noticed that she did not introduce herself. He found that odd, but even odder that she had recognized him by name and description only. This put a slightly uneasy feeling in his stomach. Yes, he had assisted and consulted on major cases, but most of his work was in emergency, a less glorified but less conspicuous specialty. So what had she heard, and from whom?

As he pulled the car into reverse, he paused, chancing one glance back toward the distant door and the window within it. It was empty. Tomorrow would be very interesting indeed.


	3. Later

It had taken nearly twelve hours of sleep, a shower, a shave and a long glass of whiskey. But by the time morning came the next day, Severus woke feeling well-rested and almost human again. He had come home after leaving the hospital and collapsed on his bed, fully clothed in his scrub pants and black long-sleeve, immediately asleep. It wasn't until he woke several hours later, drenched in sweat, that he had removed all of this. The following eight hours of sleep had been spent enjoyably naked, his ceiling fan adding a cool breeze to keep him comfortable.

Hazily, in between cycles of sleep and once he had sluggishly gotten up to eat something, Severus found himself thinking back to the odd woman he had encountered while leaving the hospital. She had said she would be seeing him 'tomorrow', and unless he was mistaken, that day had arrived. However, he found that once he had gotten some sleep and sense into himself, it was easier to write off whatever original misgivings he had of her, chalking it up to how exhausted he had been at the time. As the new hospital administrator, he decided to assume she was simply trying to be friendly and had perhaps come off overwhelmingly uncomfortable and bizarre on accident. Either way, he was not at all looking forward to a full conversation. But at least he now had a decent store of energy with which to keep his wits about him.

At around ten in the morning, Severus emerged from his bedroom in black scrub pants and black and gray striped, cotton long-sleeve, sliding his hand along the newly smooth surface of his cheek. It would be scratchy again by that night, but at least he would look somewhat less homeless for whatever encounter he faced with the new administrator. His long hair had been tied back into it's usual knot at the back of his neck. A few obnoxious shorter pieces hung in his face, against his jaw and he pushed these back behind his ears as he retrieved his keys from his cluttered kitchen table.

For a moment, for whatever reason, he paused, his eyes moving to the Sneakoscope on the bookshelf. It was still, just as it always was. He was not sure what had made him stop. But Severus had learned long ago to listen to his gut. His mind wandered to the nightstand drawer on the left side of his bed, where his black wand had come to live. For a moment, he considered going back to retrieve it; again, no idea why. With conscious effort, he pulled his mind away from it, strode to the door and stepped out into the brisk morning.

Twenty minutes later, Severus' shoulders hunched slightly as a chilly, early October breeze whipped through the parking garage, rustling his hair and pushing even more of it into his face. He locked his car and walked toward the hospital personnel entrance, glancing down an adjoining row of cars. Sure, he may have decided to suspend his paranoia and suspicions about the new administrator for the time being, but he was still not stupid enough to risk Apparition. He needed to get a better feel for her; how observant was she? How much attention would she be paying him? Would she be the type, for instance, to notice him at the hospital but find no sign of his car in the garage? He needed to determine how great an entity he was dealing with.

Now with a thoroughly windswept look about him, Severus stepped into the hospital, after unlocking the door with a swipe of his ID badge. He paused just inside, half expecting the administrator to burst into being out of thin air. But he continued on his way quickly, rolling his eyes at himself for his anxiety. Had he not faced worse foes in his lifetime? He hardly thought a Muggle hospital administrator would be any more difficult to handle than Lord Vol-

"Doctor Prince!"

Severus felt his heart jump. But it was not her; it was an older doctor, walking down the hall toward him, grinning widely. He returned a grin, holding out his hand as he drew close enough for a handshake.

"Dr. Caine," he greeted.

The old doctor, short and very nearly bald, rapped him on the arm with two knuckles as their hands broke apart. "Heck of a find with that torn aorta on David Bryant," he began, the eyes behind his glasses twinkling. "Turns out he had been having cardiac episodes for years that weakened the vessel. I put him on some meds and blood therapy but otherwise, the surgery went well."

They had begun walking together in a slow amble along the hall as Dr. Caine spoke, and Severus listened, hands and stethoscope clasped behind his back. "I'm pleased to hear it," he replied, once it seemed Dr. Caine had finished. "It was an unusual finding, certainly. Thank you for taking the case as well, I know it was early-"

Dr. Caine waved his hand dismissively. "Oh, not at all! That was a cool one!" He laughed. "When you get to be my age, they only call you in for the really cool cases. I'm just glad to see one of the young ones with a good pair of eyes for those things. "

Severus smirked, inclining his head slightly. "Thank you, Doctor," He held out his hand and Caine shook it again with a smile, ducking into the doctor's lounge, where they had stopped walking along the hallway.

He continued on his way, stepping into a stairwell to ascend the three floors that separated him from his office. After spending most of his life climbing innumerable stairs at Hogwarts, he found he had become too accustomed to it to change. Muggle elevators just seemed too...lazy, or something. Climbing stairs helped move his blood throughout his body a bit faster, sent more oxygen to his brain, and by the time he reached the third floor, he was awake, alert.

His office was modest, one of a row of three along one side of the building, the windows of which overlooked a view of downtown Boston. The massive, silver lights of Fenway Park were just visible at the furthest extent of the horizon. There was a very ordinary desk, it's contents organized strategically into piles atop its surface. At the far right corner sat one small, crystal inkwell; a handsome, black, raven's feather quill rested inside it. He did not keep any ink in it, for fear of spilling it on medical records, but he felt he just could not part with it. It sat there as a reminder. Just a little nudge from the past.

The bookshelf behind the desk was very similar to the ones he had at home- packed with books and journals, but with random items scattered here and there. A Sneakoscope had been added to this décor as well. It stood sentinel on the fourth shelf, still and silent on its point. There was also a model of the human heart and brain, along with the skeleton of a small creature with a very round, domed skull, almost human-looking arms but the tail of a fish.

Severus seated himself at the desk, opening the screen of his laptop and pulling a stack of charts toward him. If he was remembering correctly, he did not have much paperwork to do, as he had purposely completed most of it two days previously, before leaving for his late afternoon stint in the emergency room. Either way, he figured he could complete the remainder, read for an hour or two, then head downstairs to begin his emergency shift. Oakes was scheduled with him that night. Severus had a feeling he would either be much quieter than usual or otherwise act as though nothing had happened. Meanwhile, the computer had come to life and was showing him an inter-hospital interface that displayed patient's locations, statuses, codes and messages, along with medical records under heavy security codes that only the doctors and main staff knew.

Severus loathed computers. He found them fussy and annoying but had needed to learn to use one quickly; parchment and quill would have stuck out vividly in a classroom full of laptops. He had arrived in America shortly after 'dying', intending to finish two years of formal medical school, to gain the official title of Medical Doctor. So it had been imperative that he conform rapidly to the Muggle technologies that had evolved greatly since he had been a teenager.

Presently, he clicked with ease between the different patients, searching for David Bryant's records. He had been interested in reading Doctor Caine's report on the surgery, as he typically liked to follow up on the cases he referred. However, his eyes had just landed upon the name in a long list of hospitalized patients, when a knock at the door pulled his eyes upward from the screen. His stomach lurched unpleasantly.

It was her.

She was looking just as exuberant that morning as she had done two days prior, her frizzy gray hair tied up into an absurd-looking bun near the top of her head. Her eyebrows rose above the line of her thick-framed glasses as she stepped into the room, looking sheepish as though she had not just invited herself into his office.

"Dr. Prince," she started, her voice lowered. "So sorry to bother you, I'm sure you're busy, just got in-"

Severus glanced down at his mostly empty desk and the modest pile of charts before him; he wasn't exactly drowning in it... The _still_ unidentified woman continued, just as he finally opened his mouth to reply. He hastily shut it again, thankful she had beaten him to the next exchange.

"It's just that I wanted to get in and get to know you a little bit. I've been trying to get to all the doctors this first week."

Severus shifted his weight in his seat slightly, more centered, his hands meeting and linking together between the arm rests of his cushy office chair.

"Yes, I noticed that you're familiar with me and my name, but I honestly haven't the slightest idea who _you_ are," He paused, hoping his tone of voice had remained as respectful and courteous as he had intended it to. "I don't believe you've introduced yourself yet."

By now, the woman had moved fully into his office and was helping herself to one of the two faux-leather chairs across from his desk. Her mouth fell open and she gasped, smacking the heel of her hand against her forehead. Severus noticed all of her fingernails were painted a different color.

"I am so sorry!" she exclaimed, thrusting her hand toward him across the desk. "I'm Linda Sinclair, the new Chief Hospital Administrator!" Her loud, odd laugh belted out of her. "Technically, your new boss!"

He cleared his throat and grasped her hand, but only briefly. "Severus Prince," he introduced himself in return, watching closely as Ms. Sinclair rifled through a thick file on her lap, thumbing through pages until she found the "P" surnames.

"Yes. _Sev-er-us,_ " she repeated, nodding her head as she pulled a stapled sheaf of paper from within the binder. Her wide eyes settled on him with apparent intense interest. "What an interesting name! Does it mean anything?"

Severus blinked. This conversation was not at all starting the way he had hoped it would. "It means 'stern'. In Latin." he explained curtly.

"Oh! You don't say," Ms. Sinclair was no longer looking at him, but was instead perusing the packet of papers in her hand. "So let's see, native to England, of _course_ ," she read, giving an acknowledging nod of her head toward Severus, who sat there hating this more and more by the second. "And studied at University of Cambridge! Impressive!"

The corner of his lip twitched into a very forced grin, which he hoped looked more appreciative than uncomfortable. Everything she was reading, of course, was a lie. He had fabricated an entire new life history for himself and planted it, before ever reaching the Shrieking Shack that night. Sure, he had kept a few things like his name, birth date, and his appearance for the most part. But almost everything else in that file was fictional. He was _almost_ entirely self-taught and yet still equaled, or (as in the case of David Bryant) surpassed his colleagues' level of skill. She continued to read.

"Then you decided to hop the pond and take another two years at Boston U, huh?"

Severus finally managed a genuine grin. That part was true. Going from teacher to student so abruptly had been a huge shock to his system and he would never downplay all the hard work it had cost him. That first year...after the War, in the Muggle world, enrolled at an American medical university with an entirely fake backstory...That first year had been rough.

"Now, Dr. Prince," Ms. Sinclair leaned forward, resting her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand. "I've noticed that you don't seem to let the nurses assist during your diagnostics or procedures," Her penciled eyebrows rose again behind her glasses, her face alert and attentive for whatever answer he was about to give her.

 _"_ Correct," he answered. "I prefer to do things with my own two hands, not vicariously through someone whose judgment or skill I may find...questionable."

He continued in a slightly lighter tone when the administrator's eyes flickered up to him from the notes before her. "Most of the procedures I perform are ideally one-person tasks anyway. I feel the nurses' time could be spent more productively elsewhere." The latter portion of his words had been an outright lie, but it sounded good so he went with it.

"Hmm..." Ms. Sinclair hummed, flipping over one page of Severus' 'deposition' and onto the next. "You seem to have good command of the ER, but even there, you mostly prefer to work on your own, huh? With maybe one or two nurses?"

"I do," His reply was simple. He did not feel this needed further explanation.

Across from him, Ms. Sinclair was shaking her head, giving a quiet 'tsk'-ing sound as she pulled out another sheaf from the stack in her lap, clearly the file of another hospital employee.

"Well, I hope you see why that's just not practical, Dr. Prince," she began, her simpery smile once again causing his skin to crawl. The wildly ambitious attempt to win him over was failing miserably; he wondered if she knew. His expression did not change as she continued. "The nurses are there to _help_ you, not get in your way-"

"And yet," Severus cut across her. "- 'in my way' is exactly where I tend to find them." His voice had been firm yet calm, but the look of indignation that flashed across her face at his words was hard to miss. He did not break his glare away from her though, and instead maintained eye contact until she cleared her throat and looked back to the stack of papers in her hands. Satisfied that he had silenced her for the time being, Severus sat back in his comfortable office hair, surveying Ms. Sinclair from across it as she struggled to regain lead of the conversation.

After a few moments of silence, she gave a loud 'AH-HA!' and placed a particularly thick stack of stapled papers on the top of her file. That weird smile returned in full measure and Severus felt his slim sense of the upper-hand trail away.

"Well, _unfortunately-"_ She placed particular emphasis on the word. "- from now on, all emergency room physicians must have a nurse with them for diagnostics and procedures." Ms. Sinclair looked up from the papers on her lap. Her smile widened, if possible, even further. "New boss, new rules, Dr. Prince."

With a deep inhale through his nose, Severus nodded his agreement. "That should be fine, Ms. Sinclair," he said abruptly, hoping to catch her off-guard. And it worked. The administrator blinked at him, nonplussed by his sudden acceptance, her smile faltering only slightly. "I can begin interviewing tomorrow for a nurse to assist-"

"Oh, no!" Ms. Sinclair interrupted, her expression bright with what Severus recognized as another turn in the command of this interview. "No, no, that's okay, I've already got someone in mind for you," She was rifling through her papers again, beaming as she flipped through the topmost packet. "Yeah, definitely..."

The urge to roll his eyes was so great that Severus needed to take firm grip of a random pen on his desk to withstand it. Part of him wanted to take this new rule poorly, argue with her about it, lie further about why he preferred to do things alone. But it didn't matter. Whatever nurse she was planning to sick on him would be just as easy to Imperius as whichever other nurse he would have hired himself. So it seemed he would need to start bringing his wand to work with him again.

He jumped slightly, having been lost in thought, when Ms. Sinclair clapped her hands together with a loud 'SO-. She had clearly armed herself to begin another battle. Severus braced himself.

"SO-" Her eyes squinted slightly as her gaze snapped downward to his neck and back up again. "About your hair..."

There was a long pause. Severus was unsure whether he had heard her correctly. She did have a thick, Bostonian accent, and even now, after five years, he sometimes struggled with the true native speak of Massachusetts. However, as the silence stretched, his eyebrows arched deeper and deeper. She couldn't possibly mean-

"I'm sorry, my _what?"_ he asked, unable to keep an edge of incredulity from his tone. He knew exactly what she had said, but he wanted her to say it again, absolutely suffer from saying it, if she really felt as apologetic as she looked.

She flinched in that pantomime, dramatic fashion of hers that made Severus want to throttle her. "Your hair! I know, I _know..._ " she groaned, as though he was actually fool enough to believe that this was not her own rule. "It's _so_ annoying but that's just part of the job, ya know, as doctors. Gotta look profess-"

"I won't cut it."

There were dozens of better ways for him to have worded that statement. But he meant it. Her rules be damned. His hair was the last bit of his old self that he had, as far as his appearance was concerned. In his eyes, it was the last thing that still made him _Severus Snape_ , _Potions Master_.

Across from him, Ms. Sinclair's apologetic expression faded. She cleared her throat again, sitting up a little straighter in her chair, all the while, Severus could feel his arms prickling with goosebumps. The administrator leaned toward him, her smile no longer remotely warm, fake or otherwise.

"And why not?" she asked simply.

Somehow, he did not think 'because I'd rather die' would suffice as an excuse to keep his hair. But then something in his brain clinked into place.

Without blinking, Severus replied, "It's a religious obligation."

Check and mate.

Ms. Sinclair's demeanor flipped again with such speed, it was as though someone had prodded her with a cattle stick. "OH!" she exclaimed, while Severus tried very hard indeed not to grin. He knew, if she was _really_ human resources, she was not legally allowed to question the matter further once religion was mentioned. No Magic necessary.

"Gotcha, totally understood. Well, you have yourself a _great_ day!" She seemed flustered and annoyed as she rose from her chair, fumbling with the file in her arms. "Just make sure, ya know... keep it pulled back or whatever."

"Absolutely, Ms. Sinclair, I will, my word."

And he nodded her out of his office, rolling his eyes with a rather prideful smirk as he returned to the computer screen and Mr. Bryant's file. He would deal with the nurse issue later.

The rest of the morning passed in a lazy, comfortable sort of way. Severus had been correct in remembering that he had left himself very little paperwork to do. There were a few prescriptions that would need signing when he did eventually go downstairs to begin his shift but otherwise, he had the late morning and early afternoon to himself. It was times like these that he would revert back to old ways, either picking a book at random by reaching behind him without looking or else seek out exactly the one he had left off on. Reading was such a simple form of comfort for him, something so basic to relax his mind or challenge it, whichever he desired. Currently, he was about a quarter of the way through _Diagnostic Pathology of Infectious Disease._ It was an immensely interesting but heavy read and he found himself gradually leaning further and further back in his chair, extremely comfortable to say the very least.

At around noon, Severus rose from his chair and stretched his shoulders, arching his back and grunting as several vertebrae let off gentle, satisfying pops. He was due in the emergency room at two o'clock but needed to eat at some point before then. That, and he had made the decision after reading Dr. Caine's notes to go and see Mr. Bryant. He wanted to see exactly what the older surgeon had done with his own two eyes. However, cutting someone open twice, two days in a row was typically frowned upon in medicine, Muggle or otherwise. Tucking his stethoscope into the back pocket of his scrubs, he left his office, locked it and turned toward the stairs.

As Severus walked the hallway to room 206, his eyes scanned the most recent notations in the chart he had retrieved from the second floor nurses' station, avoiding collision with the other hospital-goers with ease, until he arrived at Mr. Bryant's room. The door was open but he knocked on it anyway as he turned the corner, eyes still glued to the chart in his hand. "Good afternoon, Mr. Bryant-" Severus finally looked up from the chart and hesitated mid-step when he found not one but four sets of eyes staring back at him. "-and family..." he added a bit less spiritedly, moving further into the room. The faces of the young boy and girl he had seen in the forefront of Mr. Bryant's mind the night before last were watching him now, in person, as he moved to the side of the bed. He always found this phenomenon a little unnerving.

David looked very well for a man who had just had open-heart surgery. He was at least pink and looking oxygenated, so that was a good sign. He smiled, accepting the hand that Severus offered him, shaking it and clamping the back of it with his other.

"I was hoping I'd get a chance to thank you before I get out of here," he said, then looked to his wife, who was sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the bed, their two small children on her lap. "Kayla, this is Dr. Prince, he found the...thing," he explained, while Severus pulled his stethoscope from his back pocket, eager to get this over with.

He knew David had been poked and prodded and examined, touched, handled more in the last few days than perhaps ever before in his life, so he did not explain what he was doing there. Instead, he deflected Mrs. Bryant's forthcoming gush of gratitude by asking, "So you've been well since the surgery? No pain, dizziness?" He placed the ear pieces of the stethoscope into his ears.

David shook his head with a shrug, lying back on the bed so Severus could place the head of the stethoscope on his chest. The sound of his heartbeat instantly filled his ears; _lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub..._

"Not really any pain, just been kinda weak, but Dr. Caine said that's normal at first." He looked somewhat questioningly at Severus who nodded in reply, but did not speak. David seemed to take his silence as instruction as he stopped talking, opting to look aimlessly around the room.

Severus took this opportunity to lean forward slightly, on the premise of resting his unoccupied hand on the arm of the bed, allowing just a few stray pieces of his hair to fall into his eyes, obscuring the visible side of his face from the family. Stethoscopes were not extremely long so he had needed to lean down slightly regardless. His eyes then slid closed and there, again, was Mr. Bryant's fist-sized heart, pumping away. Severus wasted no time in locating the aorta where the surgery had been performed. He did not want to draw attention to what he was doing or take any extra time doing it.

There, along the same tear he had identified, sat a neat row of dissolvable sutures, in an admittedly immaculate pattern. Severus took only a moment to admire his colleague's skill before he was pulling the stethoscope away from David's chest and out of his own ears. He stood upright again, smirking as he tucked the stethoscope back into his back pocket.

"Your heart sounds great, Mr. Bryant," He looked over at the family, the two children bickering between themselves while their mother struggled to separate them. "Has Dr. Caine said when you'll be going home?"

"Tomorrow morning if everything checks out," David replied, grinning when he too glanced at his children. "Thank you again, Dr. Prince."

"My pleasure."

With one last handshake, Severus left the room, dropping the chart in the plastic bin outside the door on his way. Hopefully, he would never see David Bryant again but he wished him luck and good health.

On his way back to the stairs, Severus glanced at his watch. The time stood at only twelve-thirty in the afternoon. Surprised and grateful that his visit with the Bryant family had gone quickly, he figured he could go back to his office for lunch, read some more if time permitted, then head downstairs. Vaguely, as he ascended the stairs, he wondered whether Oakes had been assigned his own private tag-along as well or if this was a privilege which only he was being awarded.

Ms. Sinclair had not specified when to expect this new nurse with whom he was supposed to be working but he was not at all interested in finding out. He was sure this person would be sent to find him sooner or later. Although, he did hope that it would not be as soon as that very night. Yes, he had all but mastered wandless Magic and could very easily control or manipulate the nurse without the aid of his wand, but he felt altogether more comfortable having it with him.

But he forcefully shook back a creeping sense of anxiety and pushed it from his mind. All in all, he did not really use the Imperius Curse much any more. Most of the nurses in the hospital knew that he neither wanted their help nor spared their feelings in telling them so. They avoided him unless it was clearly a situation that required assistance. The only time he felt he truly needed control of a nurse was for procedures where he absolutely had to use Magic.

Ever since entering the field of Muggle medicine, Severus had sworn to himself that he would only use Magic when he had exhausted all Muggle resources and the situation sincerely warranted it. Of course, over the following half decade, he had gotten a bit more lax about this rule. But he had also gotten much better at hiding it. Now, if a nurse stood in the room away from him, he did not mind, since he could cast Muffliato if he ever needed to murmur an incantation under his breath. Although the days of that had passed as well; he had trained himself well in nonverbal Magic, with particular emphasis on the spells he used in the hospital.

However, in the true emergencies- the gunshot victims, the car accidents, the heavy trauma, the life-threatening situations- these were the cases in which working as a team was absolutely crucial to the survival of the patient. And yet these were the cases in which Severus used Magic the most frequently and needed to use the more obvious forms of it. These were the cases where, occasionally, memories needed modifying. Those were obnoxious and tiresome, but absolutely necessary. He was quite aware that there was a Magical Congress in America and he was not at all about to leave any loose ends lying around for one of their people to stumble upon. The addition of someone to be there with him constantly, in all procedures, would mean a lot more complex Magic, more frequently. He found himself feeling a bit shameful for how much he looked forward to it.

Now, after eating and having read the same two paragraphs three times in a row, so lost in his mind, Severus gave it up as a bad job and closed the book with a heavy thud. It was time to go downstairs and see what fresh hell Ms. Sinclair had created for him.

After changing into a plain, black scrub shirt and stopping into the doctor's lounge for a cup of hot water and a poor excuse for a bag of tea, Severus was stepping into the emergency room, altogether not surprised to see that it was nearly empty at two o'clock on a Thursday afternoon. There were perhaps four or five patients that he could see as he walked past the triage area to the nurses' station. Mark Oakes was already there, his boyish face grinning toothily as he leaned back in the rolling chair, bouncing on the spring of the backrest a few times. It was clear he was taking the 'act like nothing happened' tactic. This suited him just fine.

"Dr. Prince," he greeted him lazily.

Severus pulled out a chair a few feet away and sat down, moving the mouse of a computer to wake up the screen. He exhaled a long breath as he typed in his password to the secure medical records in the hospital's database. "Dr. Oakes, how _are_ you?" he asked sarcastically.

"Having the time of my life, obviously," Oakes responded, tugging and zipping his retractable lanyard out of bored habit. Severus glanced over before rolling his eyes and returning to his perusal of who was currently in the emergency room and why.

"Clearly."

It grew quiet for a moment while a chime and a muffled voice echoed from the speaker above them, asking for Dr. Paige to please call station 415, but Mark spoke again as soon as the intercom clicked off again.

"So, Ms. Sinclair came to see me today," he said, watching as Severus used a wooden tongue depressor to mush the bag at the bottom of the cup, extracting as much flavor and caffeine as the over-processed leaves could give. "She asked what it's like to work in the ER with you."

"And you told her I'm an absolute delight," Severus supplied, taking a sip of his tea and leaning back in his own chair, wincing as he extricated the stethoscope he had forgotten to remove from his back pocket.

"Actually, I told her you're a dick."

Severus paused as he moved to take another sip. "Rude."he grumbled.

"But I told her you know what the hell you're doing," Mark rolled his eyes. "Even though you're an asshole like ninety-five percent of the time."

There was a long moment where Severus did not know what to say to this, so he slid past it, returning his attention to the computer. "Ms. Sinclair paid me a visit today as well," he said offhandedly, but frowned in surprise when Mark sat up and let the back of his chair fly up behind him with a rattle. He stood briefly to spin the chair around and sit in it backward.

"She did?" he asked, clearly finding this more interesting than Severus had predicted he would. "What did she say? I kinda figured she was going for you next when she asked about you."

Severus shrugged, taking another drink of his bitter tea. "Likely the same sort of things she asked you, I imagine," he answered, but hesitated, swirling the bottom of his cardboard cup in a circle on the counter. "She told me I have to have a nurse with me for all procedures and diagnostics-" he finally admitted, arching his eyebrows in disdain when Mark let out a short laugh, his jaw falling open. "-and that she's already assigned someone to my shifts."

He opted not to mention Sinclair's attempt to steal his hair.

Dr. Oakes groaned, the shadow of his laugh still visible on his face. He grunted a foreboding chuckle. "Oh...Oh, wow. Do you know who?"

Again, Severus shrugged, watching absentmindedly as a nurse pushed an elderly man in a wheelchair toward the exit of the emergency room, beyond the view of the nurses' station where they sat.

Mark shook his head, whistling lowly. "Well, you better watch your P's and Q's around her, Captain Attitude," he warned, resting his chin on the back of the rolling chair, where he still sat with his chest to the backrest. "She seems like she'd be a total bit-"

At that very moment, the doors to the emergency room burst open and Linda Sinclair was suddenly standing directly next to Mark, at the edge of the nurses' station. She was slightly winded, breathing with her mouth open, her eyes wide. She beamed at both of them individually, literally moving her head to look back and forth between the two doctors. Mark had started at her abrupt appearance but returned the smile, although pink color had begun to creep up his neck. Severus simply blinked at her, taking another slow sip of his rapidly cooling tea.

"Dr. Prince!" She addressed him, ignoring Dr. Oakes as though he had been a particularly life-like anatomical model. "I just wanted to pop in to tell you that the nurse you'll be working with is off today unfortunately, but she'll be here tomorrow. You're in here at four tomorrow, right?"

"Yep," he responded, his expression still flat; they both knew she had already checked his upcoming schedule.

She grinned, drumming her hands on the edge of the counter excitedly. "Great! I'll send her here when she comes in," Ms. Sinclair gave a squeal and reached out, gripping Mark's shoulder suddenly as though she could not contain herself. He jumped, looking helplessly up at her. "I'm just so excited to see all the changes you'll make in here!"

And with that, she was gone, through the double doors, and Mark was straightening up, looking unnerved. "Jesus Christ," he swore, swinging his chair around again to sit in it properly. "If she keeps just popping up out of nowhere like that..." A quiet whistle escaped from between his teeth as he shook his head. "Man, I feel bad for your nurse already."

"So do I," Severus answered without really considering it. His brain was spinning.

Thankfully, at that moment, a notice on the computer screen popped up in a red box. 'Incoming emergency: anaphylactic allergic reaction, epinephrine administered en route.' Finally, he thought. Something to keep his mind busy. As he rose from his chair, tucking his penlight and a writing pen into the chest pocket of his scrub shirt, two more red messages popped up. He stretched out his back again with a comfortable groan as two EMT's and a stretcher entered through the double doors of the emergency room. He could worry about it later.

A/N:

I just wanted to say, thanks to the awesome support of the last chapter, I am going to continue this story! I've absolutely loved writing these last two chapters and have so many ideas for the future ones. I've missed writing SO MUCH! Also wanted to report that I passed my summer midterm exams yesterday with an 87% (B) in Pharmacology (the bane of my existence) and a 94% (A) in Large Animal (Equine/Bovine) Disease Pathology, all while writing this chapter. A few hours of studying, an hour or two of writing, etc haha

So if I can pull that stunt off, you can certainly expect more from this story in the near future.

Again, THANK YOU SO MUCH for the reviews and kind words 3 It makes me so happy to be back writing again. I've missed this world and all of you in it 33


	4. Hellfire

"Ugh, no way, that's _so_ gross,"

Sweat had begun to bead on the young man's forehead as he sat on the table with his arm extended, watching as Dr. Prince very carefully placed a neat row of individual sutures along the side of his hand. With a pair of needle drivers in one hand and a hemostat in the other, he pushed the needle through the lower half of the cut and pulled it through the skin, rolling his eyes when the kid groaned dramatically. Severus had numbed his entire hand with two injections of lidocaine so all of this was pure theatrics. "Ugh, I can't watch, I'm gonna pass out-"

"So don't watch then," Severus snapped waspishly, looking up from the young man's hand. When the kid simply stared back at him, he jerked his head in the direction of the opposite wall impatiently and glared until he looked away. The young man somewhat reluctantly turned his head and Severus looked back down to the wound he was suturing. With his patient looking the other way, he gave the uninjured skin on the back of his hand a firm poke with the razor sharp tip of the suture needle. Didn't even flinch.

Idiot, he thought, shaking his head as he continued.

Twelve stitches later, he was finished, dropping the hemostat, needle and driver onto a rolling stand next to the stool on which he sat. Turning, he saw a nurse step into the room and he stood up, peeling a lightly bloodied pair of blue, non-latex gloves from his hands. The young man on the table was already taking pictures of his stitches with his phone.

Severus ignored this, accepting the chart from the nurse. "I'm going to have his Tetanus vaccine boostered, along with two weeks of Amoxicillin," he explained, motioning toward the patient with a wave of the chart in his hand. "The sutures will need bandaging as well."

Without a word, the nurse nodded, stepping past him to a set of supply drawers, pulling packages of sterile gauze and cotton wrap from within it. Severus turned to the young man, who was in the midst of sending a one-handed text message.

"So there will be no getting your hand wet for two weeks, Mr. Gonet," he drawled, scowling at the chart as he hastily notated what he had done, what he had used and what the rest of his treatment plan was, all in black ink. "I'm also recommending a booster vaccine for Tetanus, as well as antibiotics to treat any infection that may...arise." He added this last bit with a slight scowl. Mr. Gonet did not strike him as a man of great hygiene.

"Sure, thanks, Doc," The young man seemed to have gathered some testosterone now that the nurse had taken over care of his hand and he nodded at Severus, holding up his uninjured hand. It was clear he had not listened to a word he had just said.

With another roll of his eyes, he left the room, dropping his used blue gloves into a biohazard bin behind the nurses' station as he passed it on his way to a computer. As he glanced at the clock on the back wall of the station, he grunted a laugh. It was twenty after four. Not only was Dr. Oakes late, which was not wildly out of character for him, but so was this mysterious nurse he had been assigned. Late? On her first day? Not off to a great start in Severus' books.

The previous night had been spent in quiet contemplation, sitting in darkness on the balcony of his apartment, slowly adding butts to a glass ashtray, slowly draining a glass of whiskey. He had pulled his wand from the nightstand drawer and had it with him while he sat outside, tracing the carvings in the handle with his thumb by memory, cigarette smoke swirling around him. At first, he had been very blasé about the situation, choosing a thoroughly masculine approach as though the new nurse would be nothing. He or she could be manipulated, controlled and Severus would simply have to watch his step closely with Sinclair. Having hand-picked this person, it was very likely that she would be keeping an eye out, watching through whatever channels she had set up for herself.

As the night had worn on and the whiskey took effect on his nerves, Severus found himself listing toward a less stressful approach, something that if, gone awry, would not ruin the life he had set up for himself. Unfortunately, this other tactic meant going into the hospital the next day and just seeing what happened. He realized that there was no planning for this sort of thing, and try as he might, he could not predict what this person would be like. There was also every chance he would not even need the assistance much and would only have to work directly with them on the bigger, true emergency cases. He went to bed quite as anxious and unprepared as he had been when he got home.

Needless to say, he had brought his wand to work with him.

Severus had taken a seat at one of the computers and was entering the prescription for Amoxicillin for Mr. Gonet when Dr. Oakes stepped into the nurses' station, his eyes darting around the emergency room. He flopped his messenger bag onto the counter with a thunk.

"Hey," he greeted him, sliding into a chair and rolling a foot or so closer to Severus, who did not look over. "Where's the new nurse?" he asked in a lowered voice, turning to stare his way around the rest of the emergency room.

Severus felt the corners of his curved lips curl upward in his smirk as he rose to retrieve the prescription he had just printed. "Not here yet," he answered, his smirk expanding when Mark groaned, glancing at his watch.

"Oh, that's not good,"

"No, I'd say not."

At that very moment, as though waiting for a cue, the emergency room doors swung open and in skidded a nurse, her tennis shoes squeaking on the glossy linoleum floor, pink color high in her cheeks. She came to an abrupt halt and the excited, breathless expression on her face fell rather comically as she faltered under the gazes of the two lead emergency room physicians. It was only for a moment that she hesitated though, before she was smiling again, nervous but polite.

"Hi," she began somewhat meekly, offering her hand across the counter to the vastly more approachable-looking of the two. Dr. Oakes accepted it eagerly. Her voice gained confidence and steadied as she continued, "I'm Jasmine Taylor. I'm supposed to be meeting Dr. Prince."

Dr. Oakes released her hand, turning slowly in the rolling chair, toward Severus, who stood leaned against the counter, attempting to ignore the exchange without making it obvious. Thankfully, the redheaded nurse who was discharging his patient with the sliced hand entered the nurses' station, holding out a document for him to sign on the tetanus vaccine he had ordered. The nurse named Jasmine took a few steps in his direction as he handed the printed prescription to the nurse to give to Mr. Gonet.

As the redheaded nurse moved away to another computer at the station to complete the case, Severus clicked his pen shut and stowed it back in the chest pocket of his scrub shirt. As tempting as it was, he thought it would be rather childish of himself to outright ignore the younger nurse, now that she was directly in front of him, looking altogether too eager. He noticed her steal a glance at the scars on his neck, just as everyone else did. Severus folded his arms together across his chest.

"Yes, I seem to remember hearing that you were supposed to meet Dr. Prince at _four_ o'clock," He glanced at his watch. "The time now stands at almost half past."

The nurse, whom he noticed was a full head shorter than him, glanced at Dr. Oakes and back to Severus, her enthusiastic smile widening. "You must be Dr. Prince then," she said. Obviously, she had been warned about him; he liked that very much. "I got lost on my way down from Lin-...Ms. Sinclair's office." Her smile returned to full strength. "It won't happen again."

One of Severus' eyebrows arched sharply, a blossom of hope burgeoning to life; she was new to the hospital entirely, an outside hire.

"Let's hope not," he answered, failing spectacularly to hide the sarcasm in his voice. Without another word, he stepped out of the nurses' station, straight past the nurse whose name he had already forgotten. To his displeasure, she turned to follow him, bouncing on the balls of her tennis shoes slightly as she walked.

"So, I hear you usually work without nurses," she stated without preamble, skipping a full step to keep up with Dr. Prince's long strides. "Doesn't that get kinda stressful?"

Severus stopped walking so abruptly, the nurse's shoes squeaked again in her haste to avoid bumping straight into his back. She took a step back and looked up at him as he cast around for something else for her to do besides follow him like a lost puppy.

"I've found nurses make things exponentially _more_ stressful," he answered distractedly, seizing upon the opportunity as another nurse he recognized walked past them, minding her own business. "Ms. Myers," he said her name, watching as she stopped and turned around, looking thoroughly disappointed at having been singled out. "I'll be having Miss..." he paused, looking quickly at the short, blonde nurse's shiny new ID badge, clipped to the neck of her purple scrub top. "-Taylor shadow you today. Please show her where supplies are kept and how to use the computer system."

Jasmine (Severus had noticed her first name while glancing at her badge) smiled at the nurse sweetly. "That's really nice, thank you," she said to her, but again looked up at Dr. Prince. "But I was told I'd be assisting you-"

Severus interrupted, motioning lazily to the rather empty emergency room around them. "As you can see, I find myself in no need of assistance at the moment," he explained, unable to keep an edge of irritation from his tone of voice. "Besides, if you are to be assisting me, it's stands to reason that you should have a thorough understanding of _where things are,_ wouldn't you say?"

The nurse Jasmine blinked a few times, clearly caught off-guard by his curtness and how unabashedly he administered it. For a moment or two, she simply stared at him, still smiling a warm smile that did not entirely reach her blue eyes anymore. The nurse Myers seemed to sense the mounting tension as she tapped Jasmine on the arm and beckoned down the hall with her head, away from Dr. Prince. His new assistant followed without another word, without looking back. Severus smirked in triumph as he watched her go, before returning to the nurses' station, having completely forgotten what he got up for in the first place.

Dr. Oakes was shaking his head, chuckling as he pulled a laptop from his bag when Severus returned. "I give her a week," he commented.

"That's generous," he replied dully, glancing down the hall where he saw the nurse Myers exit one room and enter another, new nurse in tow. Oakes laughed again, pointing at a small, printed schedule taped to the wall of the countertop.

"Yeah, well, you're off tomorrow and only on call for Friday, so that's an extra day, maybe two."

Severus smirked. Feeling mollified that he had an upcoming full day and a half to himself in order to actually work out a plan for Miss. Taylor, he entered his password for the computer. He stared at it for a moment but then locked it again with a push of the F12 button, groaning as he leaned back in his chair. There was no other name for it than boredom.

Dr. Oakes seemed to be feeling some of the same as he nodded where he sat a few feet away, his chin in his hand as he took an online quiz to determine what breed of dog he would have been in a previous life. "I feel ya," he grunted. "I can't believe how slow it's been."

And those were the unspeakable words, the words one never ever says aloud in any sort of medical practice, human or veterinary, Magic or Muggle. This comment was absolutely tabooed, since ninety-nine percent of the time, as soon as someone mentions aloud how calm or slow the day is, it gets almost immediately, overwhelmingly busy. This is a common and very well-known jinx in medical practices.

As soon as the words left Dr. Oakes' mouth, he and Severus both turned to look at each other.

"You'd better knock on something,"

"I know, I know..."

And, inevitably, it got busy. Barely a half hour after Oakes had said the cursed words, a red notice had popped up on the computer screens: 'Vehicle collision, white female, 18y, stable, trauma to neck, facial lacerations, 10 min.' Severus had thrown a pen at him, called him a prick, and gotten up from the station, just as another red notice popped up; a case for Dr. Oakes.

Severus was now standing before a teary-eyed, eighteen-year old girl, pressing two fingers from each hand against opposite sides of her neck, palpating, feeling the muscles, vertebrae and sinew that connected a person's head to their body. The girl had been described as having 'facial lacerations' and most of the lower half of her face was faintly pink, as though blood had been wiped away from it. But there were no cuts in her skin from what he could see. Her eye makeup, however, had run in great gray rivers down her cheeks that no one had bothered to wipe away for her. For the time being, he returned his focus to her neck, as he had reached the base of her skull, beneath her healthy, maintained hair. Using all of his fingers, he applied pressure, bracing himself for the cry or gasp she was about to let out. When she flinched and gave a loud squeal, he exhaled through his nose, removing his hands to take a step back and continue scowling at the center of her face.

The girl was watching him with wide, swimming eyes. "Is-...is anything broken?" she asked, sniffling.

Severus wasn't listening. His forehead furrowed slightly in contemplation. "Did your airbags go off when you hit the other car?" he asked abruptly, finally meeting her eyes to see a look of confusion there.

At that moment, however, the sliding glass door to the exam room opened and his new assistant stepped inside. A piece of blonde curly hair had come down from her long, bushy ponytail but she hastily tucked it behind her ear. Severus' scowl deepened but he ignored her, returning his attention to the girl on the table. Her eyes had moved all the way to the left, struggling to see who had just entered the room as she was currently incapable of turning her head to do so.

"The _airbags,_ Abby," he said a bit louder that he had intended, annoyed that the entrance of Miss Taylor had distracted his patient from the matter at hand. "Did they deploy when you hit the other car?"

The girl let out a sob. "Yeah, of course they did! I hit them going like, a million miles an hour!" she cried. Quite an exaggeration, thought Severus; she had been going forty."My parents are going to kill -"

"And the paramedics wiped a bit of blood off your face on the way to the emergency room-"

"Yes, there was so much-"

Severus sat down on the rolling stool, about to make a notation in her chart. His hand moved instinctively to the chest pocket of his scrub shirt, when over his shoulder, he sensed the nurse take a step further into the room and a sudden idea gripped him. Standing again, chart in hand, he thrust it toward her. "If you could, Miss. Taylor, please take notes."

There was a split second where Severus had expected her to look confused or startled at his sudden request, perhaps take the chart from him slowly, hesitantly, but she did not. There was a pen in her hand before he could turn around, and she opened the chart to a fresh page, ready. She set the chart on a rolling table at the foot of the bed and looked up at him. He could have sworn he saw her give a minute jerk of her head as if to say, _"Well?"_

Severus once again refocused on the teenage girl in front of him. "It appears as though you've broken your nose,"

"My nose?!" she repeated with an almost hysterical note to her voice. "But my neck is-"

"Yes," He began to explain patiently. Her situation was too interesting for her not to understand it. "When your airbag deployed, it broke only the central cartilage in your nose, which, when broken by trauma, as yours has, will put pressure on a nerve which is directly connected to a spinal nerve at the base of your skull." He paused only momentarily, noticing from his periphery that his new assistant was not writing anything. As he continued, he smirked in anticipation, imagining the telling-off he was about to give once he had finished this case. Some teachers' habits die hard.

"This nerve you've pinched is one of the nerves in control of allowing you to turn your head to the sides, which is why you have no problem looking up or down right now, but can't look at the door."

The girl was in absolute pieces by the time he finished speaking. Severus let his eyeballs roll to the ceiling. "So-...so what does that even mean?!" She gasped, and ao fresh look of horror appeared on her streaked face when something dawned on her. "Wait, does my face look fucked up?!" Her eyes moved toward Jasmine at the foot of the bed, reaching out to another female soul, but Severus was interrupting any words of consolation his assistant may have been about to offer.

"It means, _"_ he went on with a bit more volume. "-that I can fix it. And your face, I assure you, looks quite ordinary," He wondered if either of the women in the room had registered his comment at all as Abby gasped with hope. She hiccuped a few times as she looked up at him.

"You can?" she asked, watching with only her eyes as Severus walked to a rolling set of drawers, atop which sat a box of blue, non-latex gloves and several glass jars of gauze and other supplies. "Wait, is this going to hurt?" she asked again, the note of a fresh bout of tears in her voice.

Severus had returned and was applying the gloves with ease, as he had done a million times before. He interlocked his fingers to squeeze the air pockets out and nodded, with what he hoped was an apologetic, solemn expression.

"Quite a bit I'm afraid," he answered honestly. He wasn't trying to be rude; she had asked him and he felt she deserved to know what to expect. The girl let out a true sob and leaned away from him, wincing as she tried to shake her head in protest.

However, before Severus could say another word, before he could explain why this was the only way, Jasmine had set down her pen and moved toward the exam bed, sitting down on it next to the crying girl. She took her hand and squeezed it with both of her own.

"Here, you can hold my hand," she said in a gentle voice, leaning forward slightly so Abby could see her a bit more properly without having to turn her head. "It'll be over really fast and your neck won't hurt anymore."

Stunned and deeply annoyed, Severus took a step back from the bed, clasping his gloved hands and gauze together in front of him. He hoped Mark hadn't put any money on his bet for how long this nurse would last. But a distinct calmness had stolen over Abby, her tears subsiding, and she took a deep breath, nodding her head gingerly.

Jasmine glanced at him, to the gauze in his hands, careful to avoid meeting his eyes. He had a feeling she knew what she would find there. "So your nose is going to bleed kind of a lot when he does it, but we'll pack it with cotton and it'll stop, okay?"

"Okay," Abby repeated, closing her eyes. "Just do it fast and-"

An almighty scream erupted from the bottom of the teenage girl's lungs as Severus suddenly seized her nose hard between his first two knuckles in a bull hook grip and pulled downward. He felt a snap and hot blood began to trickle in a stream from both nostrils. He had released his grip and was stemming the flow by pressing the gauze firmly to her upper lip.

"Sorry, I missed that last," he grumbled. "Do it fast and- what?"

Jasmine, however, laughed over his comment, rubbing the girl's back in long, soothing strokes. "Look, you can turn your head now!" she encouraged, smiling as Abby suddenly looked up and turned her head a little stiffly to both sides, giving a shaky laugh in return. "I know it hurt but that's pretty cool, right?"

Severus glared daggers at the side of her face, hoping she could feel it. God damn right it was pretty cool.

"I'll be prescribing some medication for pain," he explained, taking the chart from the rolling table where his thus far useless assistant had left it. "Miss. Taylor here will be more than happy to pack your nose, which you should keep in place for a few hours after you get home. Otherwise, ice your face and rest."

"Thank you so much, Dr. Pr-"

He had left the room before she could finish.

Positively fuming, he walked quickly to the nurses' station, passing a harried-looking Dr. Oakes on his way, who was in pursuit of several nurses and a stretcher with an agitated elderly woman upon it. Once behind the desk, he flipped open the chart, turned the page and there, where he expected to find nothing, sat a small paragraph, in very neat handwriting:

" _Patient presents to ER after vehicle collision with reported neck pain and facial contusion. Findings on exam: Manual palpation of the cervical spine and cranio-cervical junction reveals pain response to lateral manipulation. Evidence of trauma to the face, petechial discoloration around the eyes, epistaxis, likely secondary to deployment of airbags. Dr. Prince diagnoses cervical radiculopathy of cranio-spinal nerve V, secondary to a fracture of the posterior septum. Corrected manually and resultant epistaxis controlled with gauze and packing of the nostrils. -JT, RN"_

While he was reading, Severus had sat down at the desk, his eyebrows arching deeper and deeper as he struggled harder and harder to find something wrong with her notes, his disappointment mounting with each line. When he finished, he sat there somewhat dumbfounded, frowning off into space; he had not even noticed her writing them. And they were surprisingly good, almost to an irritating degree, as much as he hated to admit it.

Beneath the din of the emergency room, Severus heard the sliding of a glass door on a track down the hallway immediately ahead of the nurses' station. With a quick glance up, he confirmed that the new assistant had stepped out of the exam room, her expression serene as she slid the door shut gently behind her. Under the assumption that she would be standing before him within a few moments, he hastily attempted to look busy and returned to the computer, to open the prescription tab on Abby Myles' records.

As her vague outline appeared in his periphery, Severus felt a distinct hike in his heart rate, much the way it had done when he first met Sinclair. To quell the feeling, he took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, evenly. Why did these two women make him so _nervous?_

No, he did not believe Sinclair nor Taylor were witches, nor even remotely magical at all, in any fashion. He would have felt it the moment he met them. He had been isolated from the Wizarding World for so long that any trace of Magic, even a small one, gave his senses a very characteristic ping. It didn't happen often, but every now and again, somewhere random, when he least expected it, he would feel that little prickle on the back of his neck and his heart would flutter. The feeling never lasted long enough for him to determine whether it was a feeling of excitement or dread at encountering a source of magic other than his own.

No, both women were definitely Muggles. Ordinary.

"Were the notes alright, Dr. Prince?"

As she spoke, his heartbeat slowed and he found himself clearheaded, more relaxed, but in the process, remembered that he had been looking forward to their little discussion.

"They're..." He turned in the chair, looking straight down at the open chart on the desk between his elbows. "-adequate," he finished lamely, torn between insult and compliment. Truthfully, he was lost for an insult at all on her notes. They were obnoxiously good. Not that he could have told her that though; not on her first day.

"However, I don't recall you being present for the beginning of the exam," he continued, silkily. He used one finger to push the chart away from him, across the desk toward her. "Your notes include details from before you arrived." His corner of his curved lips curled into a sneer.

The nurse across from him smiled in return, again in that oddly calm, warm way. She placed her own finger on the other end of the chart he had just passed her. "The doors of the exam rooms are plexiglass, Dr. Prince," she began in what seemed like a forcefully patient sort of way. "I was watching the entire time. I saw her reaction when you touched the base of her skull, and I figured-" She ended abruptly, slid the chart slowly back toward him and sighed with finality. Clearly, she was done explaining herself.

But as Severus moved to take the chart from beneath her smartass finger, it did not budge, pinned to the desk by the finger Jasmine had passed it with. And she held it in place until he finally looked up at her. The calm smile was still there, but something else had appeared alongside it, a daring, challenging, familiar pride. Confidence. He recognized it immediately; it was his favorite mask of his own. He ceased his attempts to pull the chart away and stared back at her defiantly.

"I'm a good nurse, Dr. Prince," she said simply, her voice unnervingly even for the fire that had blazed to life behind her eyes. "I hope I can show you that."

With that, her finger released the file and she walked away, down the hall where she ran into the nurse Myers, who had been showing her around earlier. "Hey!" He heard her say brightly, in that annoyingly sugary voice of hers. "If you're not busy, I'd love to see where in-house diagnostics-..."

Their voices trailed off down the hall away from him and Severus sat there, staring after them. His spine was tingling and he finally allowed himself a very small, well-hidden shiver as he turned again to the computer.

Imperius Curse was back on the table.

Jasmine did not approach him again for the rest of the night. Since she was new, Severus assumed she had been assisting elsewhere, perhaps in triage helping with incoming cases, doing nurse things, attempting to be helpful without a thorough knowledge of where supplies were kept. Severus went about his cases as usual, but found himself growing steadily deeper and deeper into a very bad mood indeed.

After relaying information on the ongoing cases in the emergency room to the doctors who had arrived to take the overnight shift at eleven o'clock, Severus was trudging the hallway toward the parking garage exit. The wand tucked securely in his sleeve seemed to be humming against his skin as an unpleasant mix of frustration and bitterness brewed inside of him. It had been a long, very confusing and trying day and all he wanted at that point was-

Severus stopped walking so abruptly he stumbled forward a step in the middle of the hallway. Righting himself hastily, he looked around, simultaneously rubbing a hand across his forehead and nose, feeling the pieces of hair around his face. Pulling his hand away to look at it, he found nothing, despite having just walked through what felt like an immense, finely spun spiderweb. But he saw no sign of any recently broken threads flapping in the air conditioning, then consequently realized how unlikely it would be for a massive spiderweb to form in a scrupulously clean hospital in the first place.

After a glance up and down the hall to ensure he was alone, and after listening for any approaching footsteps, he took a step back toward the place he had felt it, his hand outstretched. He curled his fingers, moving his arm slowly, as though grasping for something unseen. But there was nothing, only air that felt thick and heavy between his fingers. There was no light crispness that typically thinned the air when recently disturbed by magic. In fact, Albus Dumbledore had taught him this very skill.

As this thought past through his mind, Severus abruptly dropped his arm and turned away, continuing toward the exit and out into the parking garage, hating himself and angered further for feeling disappointed.

But the drive home had been a good one. He had gone much too fast, sped through a few yellow lights and within fifteen minutes, he was passing his hand across the number plate of his apartment, undoing the protective enchantments he placed on his residence every single day. At this point, he wasn't really sure why he bothered. But it was a habit, so he did it. Every day.

The inside of his apartment was mercifully dark. He could practically feel his pupils dilating, relaxing from having been under the strain of fluorescent and surgical lights for the past nine or so hours. Thankfully, there was no point in turning on any lights, in the living room or kitchen, since he had no plans to utilize either room. He continued down the main hall of the apartment to his bedroom, where he finally stepped out of his black scrubs and into an equally black pair of long, loose cotton sweatpants. He found a gray t-shirt in a drawer and applied it before leaving the bedroom, wand in hand.

His apartment was technically a two bedroom- one master, and one slightly smaller room, the door to which stood in the hallway between his own and the kitchen. The door was exactly like the rest of the apartment- beige color, white trim, metal handle. However, as Severus approached it, a low hum began in a deep part of his brain, putting light pressure on his eardrums. Something welled up inside him like a sleeping monster that had been stirred from sleep. As the door opened, the breath of air from inside the room beyond filled his lungs and without hesitation, he stepped inside it, taking another deep, hypnotizing breath. For the inside of the room was thick with the scent of potions and ingredients, mixed very delicately with traces of isopropyl alcohol.

As he stepped over the threshold, the lightly furnished guest bedroom had dissolved around him and revealed a massive, stone-walled, identical copy of his personal potions lab at Hogwarts. Another of his favorite bits of magic. He had placed an Undetectable Extension Charm on the room, then refurnished it in his style, every detail recalled by distinct memory of the room in which he had spent hours, years, lifetimes.

He may have dropped the surname of his father and accomplished the title of Medical Doctor, but he was and always would be Severus Snape, Potions Master.

The dim room flickered with the light of a dozen candles in brackets in the stone walls, their glow reflected in his glossy, black eyes. As he approached a cauldron containing one of his latest studies, he reached up absentmindedly to the knot of hair at the back of his neck. He tugged on the elastic band and it fell to his shoulders in loose, unkempt, jet black waves. And as he leaned over the simmering cauldron he had started nearly two months prior, he smirked.

Sure, his new assistant may be a good nurse. But he was a _much_ better wizard.

A/N:

I just wanted to drop a note to say, the medical terminology is just for effect and character enhancement. It's all accurate, but don't get too hung up on pronouncing stuff or understanding it. And obviously, remember that this is a fictional story and not medical advice, EVER.

Again, the hugest thanks to all of you for reading, and those who left reviews and Facebook comments- those mean the world! I'm so enjoying writing this story and I hope you guys are along for the ride! A thousand thank you's!

And as always, my inbox is open!


	5. The New One

There was a dull, pounding ache near the top of his skull, so intense that he registered it and groaned in response before even opening his eyes. The majority of his lower body, his hips, legs and feet, had gone numb at some point, as he had quite apparently passed out, face-down on his work bench, while sitting on his favorite rolling stool. His arm was currently supporting his chin, outstretched along the edge of the counter. The other hung lamely, also numb, at his side. Every part of him hurt; at least, the parts he could actually feel at the moment.

He knew he had to open his eyes at some point. But at just the thought of it, his head throbbed with vigor and his stomach turned over.

Damn. He'd hit it _much_ too hard.

With a loud groan like a war cry against the process of aging, Severus opened his eyes, sat up and leaned back on the stool, all at the same time. His spine let off a series of pops like small firecrackers. His body was momentarily on fire but then he was sitting upright, breathing steadily in and out through his nose as a wave of nausea hit him like a tsunami. He resisted forcefully, focusing his mind on breathing- slow and even, lungs expanding, lungs deflating.

Fortunately, it passed, but now that he was vertical, somewhat slightly alert with both eyes open, he could see the work bench in front of him. There were no seeds nor bowls of juice, no mortar and pestle, but rather one open book. Ashamed that he was unable to remember what he had been reading, he used one finger to lift the edge of the book, to peek at the cover. _Clinical Laboratory Hematology_. With a grunt of a mirthless laugh, he let the cover thud to the desk again and reached up to rub his pounding eyes, exasperated with himself.

Apparently the night before, in an intoxicated state, he had once again visited the idea for an experiment he had been interested in undertaking for quite some time. It was a silly idea, something trivial he had thought of a few years back after a particularly messy emergency surgery, after which he had been forced to bathe completely before leaving the hospital, owing to a decent amount of human blood on his skin and in his hair. Biohazard rules and whatnot.

He wanted to study Muggle blood. He wanted to sample some of his own as well, compare magical, Wizarding blood to normal Muggle blood. Would there be differences in their composition? Would all the minerals, proteins and the trillions of infinitesimal cells be the same? He sincerely wanted to find out. But every time his mind approached this subject, he pushed it away. Sure, stealing a vacutainer of blood from the hospital could be more than easily done but...why? What did it matter? He never seemed to have a good answer to those questions.

Now that he was awake and at least mostly sober, he used the wand he had discovered in his hand to put the book away on the shelf in the wall behind him, without having to move. Having relieved the pressure on several of the major arteries, veins and nerves that supplied his legs with life, a very uncomfortable, prickling sensation had begun thrumming through the lower half of his body like static on a television screen. He felt he ought to sit there a few more minutes before attempting to stand. Sliding his eyes shut again, he felt a bit of the pressure in his head dissipate and some of his other musings from the previous night came into sharper relief.

He could remember thinking back on his day, how he had come home with the intention to slowly drink himself to sleep, to relax and do exactly what he wanted to do without any phone calls or Muggle technology, nothing medical. He had come home wanting to work on things related to potion-making, sip whiskey and strip leaves from twigs and crush fairy bones into ash. And instead of any of this, his mind had ended up going right back to Muggle vs. Magic medicine and the infernal nurse who had been assigned to him. He felt the latter had a great deal more to do with his hangover than the former.

He remembered feeling so incensed at the time that she had interrupted him to sit down and hold his patient's hand, make her feel comfortable. But he could also remember playing Devil's advocate against himself in making the counterargument that the patient had been very close to refusing to allow him to fix her broken nose. Jasmine stepped in to hold her hands, the girl had relaxed, and Severus was able to do what he needed to do. He _hated_ how helpful he started to find her actions after he had been drinking for an hour or so.

Presently, as he sat there with his forehead in his hand, eyes closed, he sighed, defeated. Nothing had come of his drunken thoughts, no solutions. He felt there was truly nothing else for it, no point whatsoever in trying to fight it, any of it: Sinclair, her stupid rule or Jasmine Taylor, RN. He could carry on as he always had done, only using magic when the situation absolutely warranted it. And in those cases, Jasmine would be put under the Imperius Curse, told to stand in the corner and not watch or listen to what he was doing. The patient could be dealt with much more easily. Jasmine, however, seemed thus far to have a sharp eye and mind. And since she had been hand-picked by Sinclair, Severus was certain that regular reports and check-ins had been sneaked into her job description.

So he would have to deal with it. Perhaps he could either push her too far as he had done with the others, to where she would no longer be willing to work with him _or_ he could simply Confund her into a silent and discreet stupor whenever she annoyed him.

Grateful that he had the rest of the day to recover from his hangover, he finally took the chance and heaved himself into a standing position. He swayed dangerously, but remained on his feet. With another long, rumbling moan, he trudged toward the door, waving his hand lazily to extinguish the candles along the walls. Some aspirin, water, a shower, a greasy, fatty breakfast ( ….? Was it even morning?) and more sleep. Doctor's orders.

…...

As the nose of Jasmine's car pulled into the parking garage at Boston Central Hospital, she had to quickly step on her brakes and come to an immediate halt, as a line of cars had jammed the entrance. She glanced at the digital clock on the controls of her car. 4:48pm. She bounced a few times in her seat impatiently, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel. Five o'clock on a weeknight was typically a very busy time for any hospital, with day staff leaving and evening-night shift arriving, but she had yet to experience it here. It wasn't going great so far. The car behind her honked. As a wave of irritation swelled over her, she exhaled slowly, closing her eyes. It was going to be okay, she wouldn't be late. But if the cars in front of her didn't move soon, she was going to park right there in the middle of the aisle, get out and walk to the employee entrance of the hospital. Her car would be towed but she wouldn't mind; it was on its last leg anyway.

Mercifully, the red tail lights in front of her began flicking off and on as the line started to move and within a minute or two, she was pulling into a recently vacated parking space. Wasting no time, she got out, locked the car and was to the employee entrance within another minute.

The back hallways were surprisingly quiet, in stark contrast to the parking garage behind her. She passed a few unfamiliar faces, exchanging polite grins, until she had walked the length of the hallway, passing doors to what she knew were the locker rooms. She then turned an immediate left through a pair of double doors, and found herself at a nurses' station at the back of the triage unit. She could see the doors through which she had burst the previous day at the other end of the immense room, lined with privacy curtains on chains pulled back like drapes. Only two sets of curtains had been pulled shut. She grinned, typing her new password into the computer to clock in for her shift; a quiet emergency room was always a good thing.

As she moved away toward yet another door, tucked back into the corner of the labyrinthine emergency unit, she glanced back again at the far double doors from the day before and let out a laugh. She could not imagine how ridiculous she had looked to Dr. Oakes and even more embarrassingly, Dr. Prince, bursting in the way she had. It was true that she had been held up by Linda but she still felt sorry for being late. So the night before, at the end of her shift, she had sneaked away from the emergency room and found all possible exits and entrances into it, memorizing which one led where. She had borrowed a hospital map from reception as well. The nurses' lounge had been shown to her the previous night and she slipped inside, hoping to get a bottle of water from the fridge before starting her shift.

As she entered, the sound of laughter reached her ears, let out by whom she recognized as Rebecca, the sweet nurse who had shown her around the day before. She smiled at her and the other nurse returned it. There were several other nurses there, people she knew only by sight so far. Not wanting to intrude or interrupt their conversation, she retrieved a bottle of water from the fridge and sat at a small table, away from the group on the couches. She was not shy at all, but she was new, and felt it would be a little forward of her to just walk right up and sit with them.

She took out her phone and began filtering through emails while she sipping her water, finding it very hard to block out the conversation the group of nurses was having.

"Who is it tonight?"

"Oakes," one of them replied. "Prince is on-call."

"Ugh," the first voice groaned. "Thank god. I don't have it in me to deal with him tonight."

"Oakes calls him in a lot. Don't get your hopes up."

Jasmine grinned to herself. However, as a gasp arose from the group across the room, she looked up from her her phone. Rebecca was pointing at her over the back of an armchair. "You're the one they hired to work with him!" she exclaimed, turning back to the group. "I forgot to tell you guys, she's the one the new boss hired to work with Prince."

Looks of apprehension and surprise appeared on their faces and Jasmine felt warm color rising in her cheeks. Luckily, one of them spoke.

"What do you think of him?" one of the male nurses asked, turning slightly on a small couch to see her better.

Jasmine shrugged, smiling politely despite how on-the-spot she suddenly felt. "I didn't really see him much yesterday since I was with you guys in triage most of the night," she answered, fiddling with the plastic label of the water bottle, mostly to give herself something to do with her hands. She hated being a 'new person' again.

"He seems interesting so far though," she added brightly, but her smile faded when she noticed Rebecca and the other nurses exchanging looks.

"Give it time," Rebecca said darkly.

Jasmine shrugged once more with feeling, annoyed with the conversation but remaining patient enough to simply grin. "I really didn't spend enough time with him to get a good read, but from what I've seen so far, he doesn't seem weird or anything. Kinda particular, maybe, but-"

And then a volley of insults, all hurled at someone who was not there to defend themselves. Jasmine shifted on her chair, feeling distinctly uncomfortable.

"'Particular' is a really nice way of putting it."

"I think he's weird."

"Me too! I get a weird feeling around him."

"-talks to me like I'm an idiot."

"Like I'm supposed to know _exactly_ what he wants for the patient, like...you're the fucking doctor, you tell me!"

Jasmine stood up, finishing off her bottle of water and preparing to grab another to take with her. As she closed the fridge and turned to leave, the tone of the conversation changed.

"I will say this though-" Rebecca began, raising her voice to cut across the chatter from the others. "I _really_ like his accent."

"Yeah!" one of the other female nurses agreed. "Have you ever heard him say 'chocolate'?" She hummed, closing her eyes dreamily.

Jasmine paused near them as she threw the empty bottle in a recycling bin, grinning in amusement as Rebecca laughed and the male nurse rolled his eyes.

"No, but now I want to," she replied. "I had to call him at like four in the morning the other night for a consult and..." A shiver shook her shoulders. "I'm just saying- I wish I could ask him to read me a book."

Jasmine left the nurses' lounge and the raucous laughter, feeling somewhat better about that particular group of new co-workers but still apprehensive about how horrible everyone seemed to find her new superior. When Linda had described him to her, there had been a distinct underlying tone of dislike there as well. She was surprised an opinion had formed that quickly, having apparently only spoken to the man twice. Thus far, Jasmine had not seen anything that would give her cause to dislike him. Yes, he was absolutely as rude as she had been warned, with extremely poor bedside manner, but otherwise, he was just a grumpy doctor with very particular tastes in how things were done. It was nothing new. With nearly ten years of practice under her belt, she had worked with doctors like him before. The holier-than-thou type. She couldn't help but wonder if it was simply a part of her personality that allowed her to work well with that type of person.

For the majority of the evening and into the early night, the emergency room remained pretty quiet. There were a few non-critical cases that had come in: a sprained ankle, an elderly man with chest pain, a very sick older woman with pneumonia. These cases kept Jasmine and the other nurses busy, but Dr. Oakes had good control of each situation as it arose, and together, they were able to discharge the patients from the ER, either sending them for further evaluation or sending them home.

It was not until around midnight that Jasmine had been sitting at a computer at a nurses' station, finishing her case notes for one of the last non-critical patients, when one of the three phones at the station rang. Dr. Oakes trotted over, laughing at something Rebecca had said and picked it up, leaning against the counter.

"Oakes," he answered and silence fell as he listened to the person on the other end of the call.

Jasmine turned back to the computer she was working on, to add her time and date stamp, just as a red emergency notice popped up on the nearly empty list of waiting non-criticals...then another...and another. Her heart sank when she heard Dr. Oakes hang up the phone behind her and swear. She stood up and crossed the nurses' station toward him, knowing she was about to have to get moving. He looked up and beckoned for her to follow him, despite her already doing so.

"Car accident, three critical, five minutes out," he said hastily, without her having to ask.

She nodded, following him into triage where he announced the same information to the scattered nurses, all of whom began moving simultaneously. One began pulling packages of sterile gloves out, one retrieved an Ambu-bag and face mask, pulling a crash cart behind her, and the others were slinging stethoscopes around their necks, tying hair back and applying gloves. And then they stood there, ready to accept whatever was about to come through the door. Jasmine's mind briefly wandered to the non-critical list and how long those people would now have to wait to be seen.

"Dr. Oakes, just so you know, there's about six or seven non-criticals as well," she said to him. He looked up from washing his hands and forearms at the deep sink toward the back of the room, his eyes widened. Jasmine hastily continued at seeing the harried look on his face. "Don't stress about those now, just keep it in mind and let me know what you want to do."

Drying his hands with a sterilized towel, he shook his head, turning immediately to begin walking toward her. "I want to call Prince in is what I wanna do," he stated determinedly, walking so briskly that Jasmine needed to trot slightly to keep up. "Come with me- Oh, you're already-" He seemed caught off guard to find her only a step behind him.

"You're half scrubbed," she explained, motioning to his hands. "Obviously, I'm not letting you touch the phone."

Ahead of her, as he reached the nurses' station, Dr. Oakes grunted a laugh. "Man, he's gonna _love_ you," he mumbled in a sarcastic undertone, sitting on the counter while keeping his arms elevated and out of contact with his unclean scrubs. Jasmine ignored the comment and picked up the phone, waiting for the numbers. "Four-seven-six-" he dictated from memory, closing his eyes as if to imagine punching the numbers in with his own fingers to help recall the last four digits. "-three-five-three-one."

The call connected but Jasmine hastily pushed the button for the speaker and stood back, hoping to make it clear that she had no desire to speak. It began to ring. Her heart gave a hard pang in her chest as the nurses' words from before, all the unkind things they had said about him, echoed in the back of her mind. Maybe she was about to see exactly what they were talking about. It truthfully made her much more nervous than she wanted to be. There was a rustling on the other end of the line, then a voice-

"This is Dr. Prince..."

All the hair on Jasmine's arms stood on end. She may have thus far disagreed with what the others had been saying, but Rebecca was not wrong about his speaking voice.

"And this is Dr. Oakes, you dick. Get in here, we have a major crash about to be here any second-"

There was a stretch of silence from the other end.

"An awfully _bold_ way of asking for help..."

Dr. Oakes rolled his eyes and tossed his half-washed hands in exasperation while Jasmine held back a laugh with difficulty.

"You're on-call, _come do your job,_ or whatever the hell you say-" The double doors swung open behind them and a stretcher, flanked by two paramedics, was suddenly in their midst. "Just get in here!" he said loudly, rising from where he had been sitting on the counter.

"Fine, but I'm only taking non-critical-"

"FINE! Just get here!" And he jogged away, adding a forcefully quiet "God _damnit_!" in frustration.

As it so happened, the first patient was the most stable of the two that followed. Dr. Oakes had evaluated the first and deemed the man stable enough for the time being. He had given clear instructions to the nurses so they could carry out a monitoring and treatment plan while he moved on to the second patient to arrive. He had come flying around the curtain, applying fresh gloves hastily before tucking his stethoscope into his ears. The woman on the table had been in the passenger seat of the car that had taken the worst damage, having been T-boned in an intersection, from what the paramedics had told them. This was where Jasmine found herself, standing next to the gurney on which the woman cried, a bit bloodied and breathing hard.

After listening to her heart and lungs for several long moments, Dr. Oakes slung his stethoscope around his neck to move toward the woman's head, while Jasmine stepped away to a rolling set of drawers, pulling out a sterile container for an intravenous catheter, a roll of tape, gloves, and stopping cap. Behind her, Dr. Oakes was asking the patient whether or not she could hear him properly, using his penlight to watch her pupils dilate and constrict, checking for symmetry.

"She's in shock," he said aloud to the nurse Kelly and Jasmine, who was in the process of hooking a brand new IV line to a bag of saline. "Let's get her on a drip of saline for right now, twenty m-"

All three heads in the small curtained space looked over as a tall figure appeared in the opening between the drapes. Dr. Prince had arrived and his black gaze was taking in the scene before him without even the slightest air of interest in the situation. Dr. Oakes rolled his eyes and Kelly pulled a tub of alcohol-soaked gauze pads from the rolling cart, clearly trying to stay busy. Jasmine spared him a glance but was too focused on tying a rubber tube around the upper portion of the woman's arm to greet him or anything else. She uncapped the needle of the catheter and watched as the woman's vein swelled slightly along the inside of her forearm.

"Miss. Taylor," Dr. Prince began, in the same rich voice he had used on the phone only twenty minutes ago. "Might I ask what you're _doing_ here?"

Now Kelly was handing her pieces of the soaked gauze, and Jasmine was firmly but gently cleaning the area of the woman's arm where the catheter was about to be placed. She felt her own blood pressure rise a bit.

"Hey, Dr. Prince," she greeted brightly, smiling, outright ignoring what she felt was an admittedly stupid question on his behalf. Her eyes narrowed on the vein she was targeting. "I'm glad you could make it in! I hope we didn't wake you." She heard Kelly give a very quiet, appreciative laugh as she held out a piece of medical tape for her.

"Indeed," he replied dully but then turned on Oakes, who was making some orders for fluids, pain medication, and X-rays in a chart for the woman. "Dr. Oakes, did you really find yourself so incapable of handling this that you called _both_ of us in?"

As the needle and catheter slid into the woman's vein in flawless form, Jasmine could not help herself but interrupt. Dr. Oakes was plenty stressed and didn't need his buttons pushed.

"You know I actually _work_ here, right? And not just with you?" she asked, attempting to keep her voice casual, normal and failing somewhat. She glanced up after carefully removing the long needle from the catheter, which stayed in place in the vein, to find that one of Dr. Prince's black eyebrows had arched sharply as he glared across the patient at her. A weight sank into her stomach. Kelly did not breathe a laugh this time but instead turned physically from the entire situation and made herself look preoccupied by hooking up the IV line.

Fortunately, and unknowingly saving her from what was likely to be a very hostile response, Dr. Oakes seemed to have had enough of the interaction. He waved his hands and the chart at Jasmine and Dr. Prince impatiently, shooing them both out of the curtained room.

"Oh my god, go do the non-criticals!" he exclaimed, his voice raised. "Seriously, both of you, go. Kelly's got it in here. Jasmine, thank you."

Dr. Prince took off abruptly, leaving the bustling triage area behind and Jasmine jogged after him until she had caught him up. She glanced up at the side of his face, his set jaw and the messy bun of black hair at the back of his neck. The two scars she had noticed the day before were on his other side. His expression was stern and determined, and although everything in Jasmine told her to keep her mouth shut, she just couldn't help it.

"Sorry if I came across rude back there," she said in a hopeful, light tone, pausing at the edge of the nurses' station while he entered it. He prodded the mouse of a computer to wake the screen and see the non-critical list. "I thought you knew that I work when you're on-call."

Severus did not react to her apology in any sort of physical way, not even sparing a glance in her direction. Internally, yes, he admitted, it had come across very rude, but, in her defense, he had not known her schedule. He had assumed Oakes had called her as well, she had only just arrived, as he had, and jumped immediately into assisting in triage. It seemed like something she would do.

"No matter," he mumbled distractedly, now wholly focused on reading the notes for the first case. A toddler, feverish and vomiting; lovely. "From now on, I'll make sure to check everyone's schedules. I would hate to miss a single beat of this place."

Pushing himself back from the desk, he locked the computer, and placed his penlight and a normal writing pen into the chest pocket of his navy hospital uniform scrubs. He stood abruptly, tucking his black stethoscope into the back pocket of his scrub pants.

"Now, if you'll excuse me-" he began, finally looking over at Jasmine. It was hard not to smirk; she looked _deeply_ annoyed at his sarcastic response to her apology. "-I need to go see a child about a virus." And he took off toward the vast hallway of full exam rooms, past Jasmine at the entrance to the nurses' station where she stood leaning against the counter.

"Oh, yeah?" He heard her ask this from over his shoulder; he did not pause to look back. "What's the kid's name? Male or female?"

At this, he finally stopped, his eyes rolling to the top of his head as he turned around, jaw clenched tightly in frustration. He strode back up the hall to her, his back straight, shoulders square, to tower over her as he reached for the chart she was holding out for him. She was smiling calmly, serenely as he glared down at her. He took the chart with more of a snatching motion than he had intended and opened it, scanning the first page for the three year old girl's name.

"Miss Taylor, you could give an Aspirin the headache of it's life," he grumbled, slapping the chart shut and turning to seek and find the young, ill, Miss. Haleigh McClure. Jasmine followed him, her immensely curly ponytail bouncing with her gait.

As Severus entered the exam room, he leaned down just inside and picked up a small plastic garbage can next to the door, designated for normal trash. Jasmine had needed to stop quickly again to avoid bumping into him. But he continued into the room, carrying the plastic-lined bin toward the exam table where a very unhappy, puffy-cheeked little girl was laying in her mother's lap. He sat down on the rolling stool and set the trashcan near the mother and child, just in case. This was not his 'first rodeo', as they say.

"Good evening, I'm Dr. Prince," he began. In the corner of his vision, he noticed Jasmine open the chart to a new page and begin to write. "I hear we're not feeling well."

The case of the vomiting toddler had been a fairly straight forward, chalked up to an overly worried mother and the internet. After confirming the girl was current on all vaccinations and after a physical exam, he determined she had likely picked up a bad flu virus of some sort from day care or something else she had put in her mouth at some point. Her fever was decently high but not to a degree where Severus felt hospitalization or immediate treatment would be necessary. So he sent her home with a prescription for a children's antiemetic medication, a recommendation for children's Tylenol to lower her fever, and strict instructions for rest, heavy amounts of fluids and electrolytes. (Jasmine had interrupted to grace them all with her suggestion to try the brand Pedialyte.) He also encouraged the mother to make an appointment with their primary pediatrician the following day, regardless.

As they left the room, Severus moved toward a sink, feeling profoundly icky, imagining all the millions of virus spores adhering to his skin. Jasmine followed him, holding both the sick little girl's chart and the chart for the one he was to see next. He glanced over his shoulder at her while he scrubbed his hands and most of his forearms with surgical-strength handwash. Call it overkill; he did not want whatever that little girl had. Jasmine seemed to be thinking along the same lines as she stood several feet away and would not hand him the chart until his hands were completely washed and dry. She had opened the chart for the next case and was reading from it.

"Twenty-three year old white male, fainted at work, says it was low blood sugar, feels fine now but his work is making him stay for diagnostics-"

Severus frowned as he turned to face her, drying his hands with a towel. "Fainted at work? And his job made him come to emergency?" He scoffed, shaking his head as he tossed the towel in a bin and finally took the young girl's file from Jasmine, who shrugged.

"Yeah, I don't know either," she replied conversationally, glancing up at him as he opened the girl's file to find another neatly written paragraph of notes signed _JT, RN_. "I can go in there first and get some more info before you go in, if you want?"

"That won't be necessary," Severus replied coolly, hastily writing an order in the young girl's chart. "Please go see that Mrs. McClure gets the prescription for Haleigh and is discharged."

Where he had fully expected at least a flicker of disappointment for being sent away to do something less exciting than shadowing his every footstep, he found nothing but a smile as she took the chart back from him.

"Sure! I'd love to,"she replied and turned her back on him, to re-enter the room, likely to explain that she was going to print out Dr. Prince's prescription and bring it to her, and that they could leave afterwards.

Severus turned to cross the wide hallway to a room on the other side of it. He noticed a very distinct odor in the room as he entered; a mix of sweat and motor oil. The young man on the table looked up quickly from picking one of his dirty fingernails and seemed so thrilled to actually see someone doctor-looking that he stood up from the table entirely.

"Man, look, I just passed out because I hadn't eaten all day, literally-"

"Sit down, Mr. James," Severus said, his request coming out a bit more like a command than he had meant it to. "I assure you I have a better understanding of what happened than you do."

As though drawn to it by magnets, Mr. James slowly sat down on the table again, staring somewhat dumbstruck at Dr. Prince, who had pulled the pen light from his chest pocket and clicked it on. He shone it directly into the young man's eye without warning, watching closely as he blinked several times and the pupil contracted into a tiny black circle. He repeated this with the other eye and clicked the light back off. He pulled out his stethoscope and pressed it to his chest, listening for fifteen seconds and multiplying by four to obtain the heart rate.

"So," Severus began, but was interrupted, _again_ , as the ever present nurse Taylor stepped into the room. He had to fight very hard indeed not to outright tell her to leave. Instead, he ignored her. He had managed thus far by pretending she wasn't there so why shouldn't he continue?

"Mr. James, your heart rate is quite normal, albeit a little high due to stress. Your... _mental_ faculties seem in order. Your pulses-" He paused, reaching out abruptly to push two fingers against his neck, where he held them for a few moments. "-are strong with no abnormalities. I believe you fainted due to hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar as you so accurately diagnosed."

It seemed an absolute lifetime before Mr. James caught up. Severus waited patiently, hands interlinked between his knees as he sat on the rolling stool across from the exam bed. However, before the man could reach the conclusion for himself, a voice in the corner said, "He means you're okay." Severus rolled his eyes up into his lids and shut them, exhaling steadily through his nose.

Comprehension then dawned upon Mr James and he laughed a shaky, nervous laugh, glancing at the nurse in the corner. "Damn, why didn't you just say that, Doc?" he asked, then pointed at the door. "That means I can go? I've been here forever."

"Absolutely," Severus replied, flipping open the man's chart to the second page and the orders upon it. His eye scanned the sheet quickly, noticing the company's name before he crossed the room, to open a cabinet on the wall, just next to Jasmine's head. He paid her as much attention as he would a statue, and opened the door to retrieve an empty vacutainer, syringe and fresh needle. "You're free to go just as soon as we get a vial of your blood and a bit of your urine."

"Wait! What?!" Mr. James had gotten to his feet again. "I have to do a drug test?"

"It appears so," Severus answered, crossing the room with a rolling tray and all the supplies needed for blood collection. He yanked two gloves from a box on the wall as he approached, his patience waning. "I'm afraid American Direct Automotive requires any employee injured or involved in a health incident on the clock to be drug tested. Their rules, not mine-"

"But you don't have to do it! Seriously, man, I can't lose my job," Severus found himself surprised at how quickly Mr. James went straight to pleading. And how quickly he tired of it. "Can't you just say it's negative? Or that you can't do it or something?"

Severus scoffed loudly, taking a seat on the rolling stool. "Certainly not, Mr. James. I should think your employers have the right to know whether the people they're paying are do-"

"Dr. Prince?"

Her voice once again cut across his own and Severus was getting fed up with it. This time, he completely and blatantly ignored her. "-doing drugs on company time- Can I _help_ you _,_ Miss. Taylor?"

She had whispered his name again and he'd finally had it. His tone had been raised, venomous and Jasmine had felt it. He looked over and saw it on her face as she blinked, blotchy patches of pink receding from her cheeks. There was a fleeting expression of hurt that flashed behind her eyes, but only a half second later, it was gone.

"I'm so sorry to interrupt, Dr. Prince, but you have an emergency call at the main station, line two," she informed him, clasping her hands together behind her back.

He gaped at her.

There was no call for him. He knew she was lying, even from across the room, and he stared back at her, stunned momentarily by the sheer audacity of her. But then it dawned on him that she was attempting to get him out of the room, to hurry him along, and without hesitation, he rose from the rolling stool with a scathing look in her direction. He was so ready to argue with her that he even went so far as to wait just outside and slide the door closed behind her after she had passed through. He rounded on her the moment it had shut.

"Miss Taylor, if you interrupt me one more time while I'm speaking with a patient-" he began hotly but hesitated, unsure where he had been going with that statement. He couldn't fire her so what else could he possibly do if she interrupted him again? It was a truly empty threat. Jasmine seemed to understand this as she raised her eyebrows steadily higher and higher until he eventually shook his head, gave up, and reached for the file for the next patient. She pulled it away from his grasp.

"Let me get the samples," she said, going so far as to hide the folder behind her back as she circled him cautiously so she was again closest to the exam room door. "You go sit down for fifteen minutes then I'll bring you the next one, deal?"

For the longest moment, he stared at her, _frowned_ at her rather, completely thrown by her manner. He had come out of that room fully prepared to positively drag her for interrupting him. But now that he thought of it, a short break after the encounter with his previous patient might do him a world of good. Severus was man enough to recognize when he was in a temper and needed to cool off. And from what it seemed, Jasmine could recognize it as well, perhaps even before he himself could.

"Fine, but _only_ fifteen minutes and then I want the rest of these people out of here," he growled, turning and leaving Jasmine to do what he normally did himself. This was indeed an early defeat, but all in all, he was fairly tired, as the time neared one in the morning.

The scent of coffee reached his senses before he was within several strides of the nurses' station. He rounded the corner to the computer on which he had been working earlier to find a hospital-issue cardboard cup of terrible, but strong, coffee. Beneath it, sat a yellow sticky note on which he recognized her neat handwriting.

 _"You were getting mean. Take a break and drink this."_

And she had drawn a smiley face.

With one foot rested on the bottom rung of the rolling chair, he stared at it, reached out to press a finger to the side of the cup; it was still decently warm. It had likely been piping hot when she had gotten it but she had entered Mr. James' room and stayed silent for several minutes before speaking up. Thickly, Severus noticed that she had spoken almost the moment he had felt his attitude rising to a 'patient complaint' level. Shaking his head, he finally dropped into the seat and moved the cup of coffee from atop the note. He picked it up with one finger along the tacky edge and stared at Jasmine's handwriting for a moment, recognizing the E's from her medical notes.

He crumpled the note, threw it away and took a sip of the coffee. It was awful.

Fifteen minutes elapsed much too quickly after he had left the previous exam room. As Jasmine approached, grinning proudly with a vial of blood in hand, Severus rose from the chair, avidly avoiding eye contact. He felt a bit more energized despite the bad coffee but he accepted the chart from her without a word, opening it to stare at the first page without really seeing it. He wanted to thank her somehow for the coffee, for recognizing that he needed a break, but quite unsure how to do so. It was such a simple thing but he just could not find the words. So he didn't. Instead, he stepped past her out of the nurses' station and began walking toward the room in which his next patient sat waiting.

"Really though," he said at a normal volume, knowing she was only a half-step behind him. "Stop interrupting me."

The next four exams of non-critical patients went smoothly enough. Jasmine had heeded his words and remained quiet for the exams, only speaking or offering assistance once they were outside of the room. He had allowed her to read him the presenting complaints from the next chart as he washed his hands between patients and did not have to ask her to take notes; it seemed note-taking was something she was prepared to do anyway. Perhaps it was simply a part of any nurses' job; Severus wouldn't know. He had always done his own.

It was nearing four in the morning by the time he finally sat down again, around the time he would have normally been preparing to go home had he been scheduled as the attending physician that night. For quite a while, he had forgotten that he was only on-call and not specifically scheduled to be there. The longing for his bed was intense, having only gotten into it a minute or two before being called in earlier that night. With a sigh, he pulled up the electronic chart for the last case of his unexpected shift. He heard someone approaching but did not look up, fearing it may be Jasmine with some witty, want-to-be casual remark about only God knew what. However, as a much heavier person flopped down into the rolling chair a few feet away at the next computer, he picked up the scent of surgical scrub and musky sweat. So definitely _not_ his nurse then.

Dr. Oakes had sat down and was very dramatically fanning himself with a random file he had found on the desk. "Damn, what a night!" he exclaimed, sounding tired but altogether pleased with himself. Severus felt him look over. "Did you two finish up the non-"

At that moment, Jasmine appeared, looking quite tired herself, but still smiling as she placed the last chart on the desk in front of Dr. Prince. She did not speak to him but instead walked toward Dr. Oakes.

"There's a few more non-criticals left but Dr. McMann is about to be here any minute so I figure he can pick up where we left off," she explained. Severus chanced a glance up from the prescription log on the computer to see that Jasmine was specifically addressing Oakes, the official attending physician for the night.

"Really great job tonight, Dr. Oakes," she then told him with genuine brightness in her voice, despite how exhausted she looked. Her normally bushy, curly ponytail looked as though it would take her years to untangle it completely and several frizzy curls had fallen out of it to hang in her face. Severus tried to ignore a stab of indignation in the pit of his stomach at her kind words to Dr. Oakes, who had, as far as he knew, only managed to keep three car accident victims alive.

Oakes returned her brilliant smile, leaning far back in the rolling chair to cross his ankles atop the desk. He folded his arms across his chest but whether or not he had been about to thank her for the compliment, Severus would never know, as he felt Jasmine's attention turn in his direction. His eyes narrowed on the computer screen, hoping to look preoccupied.

"Dr. Prince, I'm sorry you had to get out of bed in the middle of the night to do your job," She said this very gently but with the slightest bite in her voice. It did not go unnoticed. Severus looked up from the computer screen slowly. Her smile expanded as she continued. "But you did great tonight too."

And with that, she was gone, leaving the nurses' station and the two doctors behind as she made her way to the back of triage to clock out. Severus returned his attention to the computer as Oakes shook his head and began packing things away into his messenger bag.

"So it's like that so far, huh?"

"Yeah,"

"All night?"

"Mm-hm."

"Damn."

Mark was still shaking his head as he finally swung his bag over his shoulder and prepared to leave for the locker rooms.

"Say what you want, Prince, your nurse is awesome," he commented. Severus replied with a noncommittal grunt. "She's really sweet-"

"She's really annoying," he corrected, rising from the chair to retrieve the drug log now sliding off the printer, warm and fresh.

"-and really pretty."

Severus scowled at the list he had printed, waiting for him to finish his sentence. When Oakes turned to leave, he frowned after him, confused at how abruptly he had finished speaking. "Pretty what?" he prompted, hoping wildly that his colleague would launch a complaint that he had not yet thought of.

Instead, Oakes let out a tired laugh and shook his head. "How am I not surprised you haven't noticed?"

Fortunately, at that moment, a portly security guard called Arnie appeared in their midst, glancing around the seemingly empty emergency room. It only took a second for him to notice the two doctors and he looked relieved when he saw Severus standing there, still glaring at Oakes' retreating back. Arnie breathed a sigh of relief, gripping a walkie-talkie and holding it close to his face.

"I found him, don't call," he mumbled into the device before clipping it back to his overly tight belt. "Dr. Prince, I'm glad you're still here-"

"I'm not," Severus stated blandly, incensed that his nurse _and_ the doctor who had called him there in the first place had been allowed to leave their shifts before he could leave his.

Arnie hesitated but continued. "We were about to call you," he began, moving closer to the desk. "There's some sort of alarm going off in your office-"

Severus felt his heart leap into his throat. The Sneakoscope.

"I looked in the window and I can't really see anything but there's something in there whistling real loud."

Abandoning the drug log on the counter, Severus immediately left the nurses' station to follow Arnie to his office. It looked as though his night was not yet over.

A/N: As always, thanks so much to those of you who are following this story! We are in for some seriously exciting stuff and I can't WAIT to get it out to you! (I was originally going to post this tomorrow but I didn't want to wait!) I hope you enjoyed!

And of course, reviews are SO appreciated but never expected = )


	6. Low Blow

For every one stair the security guard took, Severus took two and had reached the third floor several long moments before Arnie came huffing and puffing up the stairs behind him. The floor was completely empty, every office dim and unoccupied, all computers and other devices powered down. There was an eerie stillness about the air that seemed to press on his inner ears, the beat of his heart pulsating within them. He counted the beats subconsciously as he walked further into the third floor, willing his senses to heighten; he wanted to be aware of every single detail and sensation. The silence was profound. The Sneakoscope had obviously stopped screaming. That silly device may have appeared insignificant, and of course he had other methods of detecting enemies, but it was always very sensitive, very accurate, no false readings. If it had made a noise or moved at all, someone unwelcome had been close that night.

As discreetly as he could, though the wheezing security guard was several paces back, Severus moved his right hand toward his left hip, to the wand in the waistband of his scrubs, only to place one finger on it. He felt a wave of savage arrogance swell up inside of him, even to the point where he actually bared his teeth in a smirk as he approached the door to his office. He wished someone _would_ jump out and attempt to hex him. How badly he hoped, _prayed_ for some unforeseen enemy to leap out from whatever hiding place or enchantment and attempt to harm him with magic. That wand would be in his hand and spitting fire, agony, shards of glass, arrows, whatever he liked, within the time it took for his opponents heart to beat once. It had been an _age._

At the door to his office, he rested one hand on the knob and shut his eyes with his back to Arnie, who had finally caught up and was breathing heavily, mouth open. The fine hairs at the back of Severus' neck stood on end, tingling waves of energy traveling up his arm and into his chest as though the door had been wired electrically. He twitched his hand away quickly, his fingers tingling unpleasantly. This was the strongest residual magic he had felt since leaving the Wizarding world. It was fresh and purposeful, intentional. He wasn't sure why he felt the intention in the caster's magic but deep in his gut, he truly felt that someone had come there, to his office, specifically to find him. He swallowed hard as he stared at the doorknob. Albus Dumbledore had been able to feel an enchantment's intention, too. Arnie clicked on a flashlight.

"I think I can manage from here," Severus turned to him abruptly, his voice steady, calm. "I keep a small toy on my bookshelf that sometimes falls over. Clearly, it's stopped whistling."

"But..are you sure? It was really loud-"

 _Confundus_

His lips never moved and the wand was quite unnecessary. Arnie blinked as though struck unexpectedly dumb by a blunt object. An expression of confusion furrowed his forehead as he glanced up and down the empty hall.

"Did you say something?"

"You were just telling me that you're going back downstairs," Severus explained, watching indifferently as Arnie nodded, dazed.

"Yeah...That was it," he agreed, turning to walk away with a meek wave of his hand.

Severus pressed his hand back to the knob and shut his eyes again. Someone had attempted _Alohamora_ it seemed, after a few other enchantments designed to detect wards; of which he had none here. But if he was understanding the timeline properly, the Sneakoscope had likely gone off before a thorough magical prying could be completed. Whoever had attempted to break into his office had been thwarted. Smirking with satisfaction, Severus unlocked the office with the physical key and stepped inside, finally pulling his wand from the waist of his scrub pants. He locked the door behind him.

 _Colloportus_

And sealed it.

 _Muffliato_

It was dark within the room, lit only faintly by the lights of the city beyond the one window. He kept it that way, ignoring the lamps and overhead lights as he gave a flick of his wand. A thick, black drape flew across the window, suspended like a curtain, to hide the inside of the room from any prying eyes beyond it.

The air within the room was thick and heavy, undisturbed. No, he did not believe anyone had made it inside the room, as he was sure he would have felt a lingering presence, some disturbance in this thoroughly Muggle office. His heart rate was beginning to slow. Still, he just had to be sure:

 _Homenum Revelio_

Nothing, obviously.

While he was certain there was no living person there aside from himself, he could not entirely trust that there was not a curse or enchantment on anything, literally anything, inside that room now. It would have been all too easy to sneak something in or tamper with something already within it. That Sneakoscope had been Charmed by himself personally only to detect a very select group of people, none of whom he had any desire to see at all. Taking a deep, focusing breath, Severus' eyes slid shut and he began to speak, slowly, his voice so low it could not have been heard by anyone else in the room.

 _Patefaciat latebras tenebris lux_

His lips moved with the incantation, forming the Latin words carefully. The plain office around him began to vibrate as though gripped by a mild earthquake, the desk rattling, the books on the shelves thundering like the hooves of a hundred horses where they stood in their shelves. One of his anatomical models rattled to the edge, fell from it's place and thudded to the ground but Severus was unaware. The wand held in his hand sent waves of smooth energy surging through the room, up the walls, up his arm, into his chest where it filled him like warm liquor. He sighed as though taking a hit of his favorite drug. It had been so long since he had last played with the higher strengths of magic and his body responded to it eagerly. His heart was throwing itself against the inside of his chest as though desperate to be enveloped by the energy he was producing.

With all of his focus on the warm waves rippling up his arm, he waited, outright hoping his search of the dark room would produce something of interest. This spell was intended to reveal concealment, friendly or dark, and if detected, would come to him in a shock like that of static electricity from shaggy carpet. But the air remained still and quiet, the steady pulses up his arm as calm and measured as when he had begun it. Dropping his arm with an audible huff of disappointment, the room stilled abruptly, the desk and books were quiet, the window stopped rattling.

Again, nothing.

There was no point in trying anything else. If his last attempt had failed to produce a result, it was very unlikely there was anything to find. Whoever had come was long since gone by then.

As he left his office a few minutes later, after vanishing the black drape he had conjured, he erected new wards over the door here, much like that which he had put in place at his home. Should someone unwanted attempt to break into it again, he would know exactly who had come calling.

And that was what bothered him the most. He had no answers, no idea as to who had triggered the very specific alarm in his office.

He passed along the hallway toward the stairs, his every step costing him effort. This latest use of strong magic, not to mention the initial surge of adrenaline, had taken the very last of his stores of energy. He had already been tired from his late, unexpected shift in the first place. Severus felt somewhat ashamed of himself that a spell he could have handled easily on little sleep years ago now seemed to drain him to the bones. The average magic he used in the emergency room was not a problem. He had grown accustomed to it. But even then, he had reached a point, especially with his new nurse around, where he would not be able to use it very often. Perhaps, he thought, he should begin practicing his deeper magic at home again from time to time. He had fallen out of the habit.

The sky beyond the concrete walls of the parking garage was lightening with the steady rise of the sun. Streaks of deep indigo, pinks and gold grazed the horizon as Severus finally slid into the driver's seat. For a moment, he sat there with his eyes closed in the silent car, breathing deeply, listening to the rhythmic sound of it, the deep breath, the slow exhale. He now knew with confidence that there was another source of magic near him, leaving traces, little pieces for him to either discover or stumble upon by accident. Whether the source was friend or foe, he could not be sure.

…...

The following shift week, which for Severus began on a Friday night, had begun with a literal _bang,_ as one Ms. Linda Sinclair came bursting into the emergency room, dramatically throwing wide the metal double doors like a cowboy arriving at a bar in some Western. Oakes had nearly jumped out of his seat and Severus had stared at her, gaped at her, his eyebrows furrowed, fumbling for a polite way to ask her what would have happened had there been a patient on the other side of those doors. Also, what the hell she was doing there at eight o'clock at night.

She strode in wearing purposely tattered jeans and a lurid, orange sweater, the neck of which sat high on her throat, giving her a distinctly cartoonish look. Her hair was, as always, tied high up on her head, her silvery gray curls barely contained. Dr. Oakes sat up a bit straighter; Severus returned to his notes on his previous case. Jasmine was standing nearby, casually ready to spring into action, but secretly raring to take the chart from him and begin his treatment orders like a greyhound at the gates of a race. As Sinclair approached the nurses' desk, Severus sensed Jasmine take a step toward him, even going so far as to reach her fingers out discreetly toward the chart on which he was actively writing.

He frowned down at her hand through the crease in his elbow. Then he understood. She was trying to get away. And was attempting to use his orders as an excuse to do so.

Smirking in both amusement and fake greeting to Ms. Sinclair, he leaned back in his chair, quickly jabbing the tip of his pen at her fingers. The pen made contact, he heard a hissed intake of breath, and his smirk redoubled as the new Chief Hospital Administrator exclaimed, "Hey, Jasmine!"

Too little, too late.

The pink in her cheeks was nearly neon when she looked up. Severus had needed to cough to stifle a laugh.

"Hey!" she had replied, moving toward Ms. Sinclair, in what appeared to be a clear effort to get her away from the doctors. "I actually wanted to- uh- talk to you about some stuff, so-"

"No, no," Sinclair responded in a curt tone, waving Jasmine away dismissively. Severus remembered that distinctly. At the time, he had found that so rude of a new administrator to do to a new hire. "I wanna talk to these guys first. How are we liking things in here, huh? Going well?"

While one doctor gave an unsure wobble of his head in some morph of a nod and shrug combined, the other returned his attention to his chart but did not start writing. He had this feeling that-

"Dr. Prince!"

He shut his eyes to inhale deeply and compose himself, before he looked up, eyebrows arched sharply. "Present," he replied deeply, glancing at Jasmine, who stood facing him on Sinclair's right. Wide, anxious blue eyes stared back at him.

"Are we liking the whole 'working with a nurse' thing? Is Jasmine living up to all the good hype I've been hearing from everyone _except_ you?" She winked at him in the most obvious and grotesque way he hoped a woman would ever wink at him.

Revolted, he linked his fingers together on the desk before him. "I feel those may be questions more suited to a _private_ review of my colleague. However, I can certainly schedule a different time to discuss Miss. Taylor with you...perhaps, in her _absence?"_ He added the word in a hiss, allowing his gaze to flicker to Jasmine again. Anxious eyes had relaxed but she did not look altogether reassured.

"Oh!" Sinclair seemed to have remembered that Jasmine was standing next to her as she looked over and suddenly laughed. Her arm swung heavily across the nurse's shoulders. "Sure, of course. I was just asking-"

At this point, Jasmine slipped out from beneath Sinclair's arm and returned to the nurses' station, where she disappeared to a back computer, desperate to look busy doing something. Dr. Oakes was tugging on his lanyard awkwardly and Sinclair seemed to be casting around for something else to bring up. Severus sincerely wished she wouldn't go to the trouble. All she had to do was walk away, right now, no parting words...just go.

Suddenly, she was gasping dramatically and slapping both hands down on the counters with a loud clacking noise, owing to her numerous rings. Her face turned fully from one doctor to the other. Her gasp, fortunately, had been loud enough to drown out his voice as he swore at normal volume, again leaning back in the chair. He began tapping his pen impatiently against the chart he _still_ had not finished.

"Where are your _coats?"_

Dr. Oakes finally spoke. His purposely groomed, stubbled face appeared confused by her question. He glanced over at Severus as though begging him to back him up. "We kinda don't really wear them...down...here..." The words trailed off at the expression on Sinclair's face.

"Well, you guys!" she said brightly, holding out her arms. "We gotta look professional! How are people going to know you're doctors?"

"Ms. Sinclair, if I may-" Severus suddenly began, voice raised. He had not slept well over the past few days and was _not_ in the mood for it. She turned her entire head and wide, bespectacled eyes on him. Oakes began waving his hand across his neck from out of Sinclair's line of sight, mouthing for him to shut up.

"When I enter an exam room, I typically introduce myself as _Doctor_ Prince,"

Oakes rolled his eyes, tossing his arms. Severus continued while he had the momentum.

"And even the dimmest of patients tend to catch on once I start doing...doctor things and using big words. Quite beside all of that," he pulled his ID badge away from his scrub shirt and glanced at it upside down. "This identification badge does have the word _Doctor_ and _M.D._ on it."

The heaviest, most pregnant pause filled the area like a gathering storm cloud. Oakes' mouth had fallen open, Jasmine had actually walked over and Sinclair looked as though he had slapped her. He did not see what the others were so shocked about; his tone had been casual and nothing he said had been inaccurate. The coats were not the point; she couldn't give a damn if they wore them. Hell, she _knew_ it was impractical for them to wear coats. Her goal was to control, to take over and change everything, make all the power plays up front to establish her dominance there. It was a political tactic Severus despised. He found himself forcefully reminded of Dolores Umbridge and liked Sinclair, if possible, even less.

For the longest moment following his words, braced for shouting, all three waited. Severus was still watching Sinclair, studying her chain of reactions.

First, she seemed positively livid, truly on the verge of losing her cool. But her eyes had flickered upward to a spot over his shoulder and something about he demeanor seemed to relax a bit, though a nasty coolness remained behind, her gray eyes like ice, no smile evident whatsoever as she leaned toward him, hand flat, outstretched on the counter between them.

"If you're not gonna cut your hair, you're gonna wear the coat."

And that was that. Without another word, Severus watched her go, hating her for not only having the last word, but uttering it _just_ loud enough for the other two people nearby to hear. Win one battle, lose another.

Fortunately Jasmine and Oakes seemed quick on the uptake that he did not feel like discussing what had just transpired between himself and the new administrator. Both went about their business and both, even Jasmine, gave him something of a wide berth for the rest of the night.

The days that followed the passing of the latest decree by Linda Sinclair were mostly without incident. Oakes had come in all fussed one late Tuesday afternoon, looking incredibly uncomfortable in his wrinkled white doctor's coat. He swung his bag off of his shoulder onto the desk and immediately shrugged out of the coat. Severus' was draped over the back of the chair on which he sat, watching, mildly entertained.

"I'm literally coming out of the locker room and she's walking by to leave. ' _Well, where's your coat?'_ Had to go out to my fucking car _with her_ to get it," He slammed his keys down on the counter as he sat to begin his shift.

Severus shrugged, rising from the chair as he spotted Jasmine zooming toward him down the hall, chart in hand. "I told you, I'm not bothering. She'll give it up after a week or so." And he left the coat behind. Jasmine made a noise and hesitated as though tempted to tell him he should probably just wear it but seemed to think better of it.

Smart girl.

As he walked the hallway to triage, the short, blonde engine a half-step behind him was firing on all cylinders, reading from the chart while she followed. He could feel a headache forming deep behind his eyeballs.

"-Fifty-six year old, white male, claims he closed his hand in his car door-"

"Claims?" he interrupted, arching one eyebrow in curiosity. He had not heard her use that word in regard to a presenting complaint thus far.

Jasmine shrugged, looking a bit sheepish as though she had not meant to use that word audibly. "Well, I hope he's telling the truth but...I dunno, the bruising and swelling doesn't look right," She hesitated, coming to a stop as Severus halted in the entrance to triage. "I think he punched something. Like a door or fridge or something-"

She glanced up at his eyes but looked away quickly, holding the chart out to him."Well, you're the doctor. Tell me what you think after you see it," she finished brightly, finally adding her characteristic smile.

Turning a corner, they were at the door to the curtained-off exam room. Severus stepped in before Jasmine, looking to the bed where the middle aged, gray-haired man sat, one hand rested delicately on his knee. At first sight, it seemed quite a bold leap of judgment on Jasmine's part to assume this well-groomed, nice-looking man had punched an object in a fit of anger. He seemed perfectly calm and kind, as he extended his non-dominant, uninjured hand. Severus clasped it with both of his own, glancing at Jasmine briefly with a 'really?' sort of expression.

"Sorry about this, Doc, I know it's not really an emergency but the wife made me come in," the man apologized, grinning with set of spectacularly white dental implants.

"Not at all, Mr. Connor," Severus replied, taking a seat on the rolling stool to open his chart. He scanned Jasmine's neat paragraph of notes. She had left out the word 'claims'. "So, as I understand it, you closed your hand in a car door?"

The man sighed heavily, extending the swollen, bruising hand gingerly. "Yeah, just wasn't paying attention I guess. Normally I wouldn't bother with it but it hurts wicked bad, Doc."

Severus turned the hand over, expecting, somewhat hoping to see bruising along the palm. There was none. His knuckles however, he turned the hand back over, were bruising nicely and his entire hand seemed to throb palpably in his fingers from the swelling across the back of it.

Damn. She had been right. There was no denying it; he recognized this hand. A car door definitely didn't do this. Not in the way his patient was describing it.

"And when did this happen?" Severus asked, still examining the hand Mr. Connor was holding out. The man looked up quickly, meeting his eyes before glancing away to the right.

"Just- about...two hours ago-"

Liar.

Severus began speaking before he had finished his sentence.

"What's your wife's name?"

"Jamie, but what-"

"Her birthday?"

"Uh- June third, but, Doc! My hand?" His voice betrayed a hint of impatience.

"And how old is she?"

"Fifty-two, okay? Now can you please tell me-" Definitely getting angry.

"And what did you punch this morning?"

"THE GARAGE DOOR! Can you PLEASE just tell me-"

Mr. Connor all but shouted these words but cut himself abruptly short, his face blotchy with patches of purple. Severus saw Jasmine give a pronounced start from the corner of his eye and she took a small step back. A quiet heaviness hung in the small curtained space as the man regained control over his breathing.

"Problems with anger?"

"I got a therapist..."

Severus released his hold on the hand and set it down gently on Mr. Connor's knee, who seemed to be regretting his outburst and attempting to move casually past it.

"So uh, anything broken?" he asked, laughing in an obvious attempt to lighten the mood, but only succeeding in making things more uncomfortable.

Severus nodded matter-of-factly as he rose from the stool, chart in hand. He pulled the pen from his chest pocket and began to write on the first page. "Of course something's broken," he replied casually. "But I'll need to see radiographs to be sure. _X-rays_ , Mr. Connor." Normally, Severus could have checked the integrity of his bones just by closing his eyes and moving two fingers around the hand but Jasmine, as always, was only a few feet away. He was not ready to risk it yet.

He signed his initials to the radiology orders for the man's hand and slapped the chart shut.

"In future, sir," he began, holding out his non-dominant left hand toward Mr. Connor's. He slowly reached out to take it, hesitantly. With a quick motion, Severus grabbed his hand, gripping it tightly in return. The uninjured hand twitched within his grasp but he did not relinquish. "-I wouldn't _lie_ to doctors. This may have been innocuous enough but under different circumstances, it could leave you dead, do you understand?" He stared at Mr. Connor just long enough to receive a compliant nod before he released his hand and turned to leave the room. "Please wait here and a radiology technician will be by to collect you for the X-rays."

The moment Jasmine had shut the door behind her, she gave an excited little bounce, her smile almost too immense for her face. "I knew it!" she exclaimed, keeping her voice quiet enough that the man inside would not hear. "That thing you did by asking him all those questions, that was so-"

"Miss Taylor, could you please take this chart from me and page radiology to complete the orders I've written?" He raised his eyebrows as Jasmine stopped suddenly, her smile receding rapidly like the tide of the sea, leaving behind a surprised and rather wounded expression. She looked down to find that he had been holding the chart out to her the entire time. A curl fell out of her ponytail with the movement but she tucked it back quickly and accepted the chart from him.

"Oh," She seemed unsure, thrown off balance by the torrential downpour with which he had just rained on her parade. Her cheeks glowed faintly pink. "-Sure! I'll get it done right now." Another smile was in place and off she went, dodging other nurses on her way to the back station. Severus watched her go but did not linger long.

He knew he had hurt her feelings.

More interesting than that, however, Jasmine _had_ been right, just from a basic visual examination of the man's hand before Severus had gone in. But he would have recognized that hand anywhere, immediately, with no medical training and certainly without her aid. His wretched father had often sported that hand, and consequently, so had Severus as a teenager. That is, until he had learned that punching things and raging about does absolutely nothing to solve any problem. He had made the control of his emotions into a personal discipline, and it was this that had eventually allowed him to play second hand to the two most powerful wizards in the world. That fact not withstanding, punching things was archaic, so neanderthal in his opinion.

He thought back on the man he had just met in the exam room and shook his head as he approached the main nurses' station, to add a prescription for pain to Mr. Connor's chart. He had gone in with complete objectivity to see the man, shaken his hand and thought he seemed harmless. And he would have accepted the story of the car door! That is, until his own examination of the hand told him otherwise. But Jasmine had not hesitated in considering that the seemingly well-mannered man with the broken hand suffered from a bad temper and an anger issue. He found that interesting and somewhat telling.

And she had been _so_ excited about being right. But Severus, admittedly a little resentful, had shot her down with such swift and impatient indifference, it was as though he had physically struck her. He snorted, shaking his head absently. He shouldn't feel sorry for it, he had said nothing wrong. Her attempts to materialize a camaraderie between them had been all but obvious throughout the past week. Each attempt had been similarly rebuffed, but all that had seemed to do was encourage her think of even _more_ kind and discreetly thoughtful things to do to help him. He had come back to the desk from a case the night before last, in a _very_ bad mood, to find a hot cardboard cup of bad tea and another smiley face sticky note bearing the words ' _Don't be a dick'._ He had taken the tea but left the note stuck to Oakes' laptop screen while he was away from it.

Severus now found himself staring at the blinking cursor on the screen where he had stopped halfway through typing the word 'naproxen'. Now that he had actually thought about it, he could not get the memory of her hurt expression out of his mind's eye. It was a guilt as though he had kicked a puppy, the kind of guilt that would gnaw at him. The most annoying of its kind. He had seen flashes of hurt after some of his snarkier comments and replies in the past week but this one was heavy, this one was deep. This one had hurt worse than those before it. Severus exhaled heavily, leaning back in the chair and groaning an audible, drawn-out ' _Damnittttt'_ as he pushed his knuckles into his eyes. He would have to apologize.

Thirty minutes passed, approximately twenty-three seconds in emergency medicine time, and Severus had just walked back to the desk with his instructions for a ridiculous, hideous and totally unnecessary cast for Mr. Connor's hand when the phone toward his end of the desk rang. One of his eyebrows arched. Even Oakes looked over in surprise. It had not rung once since Jasmine had started working with him. The other nurses would _only_ call him when they needed him, to sign something, review a result, take a patient. Curious, he picked it up, but put it on speaker.

"Yes?" He drew the word out into a long question.

There was a brief silence on the other end before Jasmine's gentle voice came through as clear as though she were standing before him. "I have Tom Connor's radiograph results for you to look at, Radiology suite B." And she hung up, the speaker giving a loud CRACK as she had presumably slammed her receiver down a bit on the other end. Severus' eyebrows arched further as his colleague let out a low whistle.

" _Man,_ is she mad at you..." he muttered, rolling himself closer to the hospital computer.

"Shut up," Severus snapped in return, leaving the nurses' station to go endure the wrath of a twenty-something year old he had offended. In many ways, his life had not changed all that much. Instead of teenagers, it was adults; he was beginning to wonder which was worse.

To his immense surprise, halfway down a hallway to Radiology suite B, Jasmine caught him up, heading full tilt in his direction from an adjoining hallway. She was smiling, her wild ponytail catching wind. He gaped at her; this could not have been the same person who had just spoken to him so coldly on the phone.

"Hey!" she greeted him, but continued without waiting for any sort of reply; not that Severus even had one. He was still regaining his balance from her turn in attitude. "The films came out great! I have them up in here."

He followed her a little ways down the hall from whence she had just come, to a door, which opened on a vast room. The walls were lined with massive lightboxes, some forgotten or particularly interesting X-rays still left behind, clipped into the metal frames. A long metal table stood in the middle of the room, scattered here and there with magnifiers or calipers, pens and notepads, the random detritus of doctors and nurses. Some idiot had left a mug of cold coffee as well.

Jasmine let the door shut behind her as she stepped in after him. The harsh fluorescent lights in the ceiling were still on as he stepped into the room, but flicked off suddenly, plunging the room into pitch darkness. This was followed very shortly by a loud crash, a deep swear word and intense, sharp pain below his right hipbone. He had walked just close enough to be clipped by that idiotic, apparently _rolling_ metal table. A plastic magnifier fell to the ground and bounced noisily on the glossy linoleum flooring as he righted himself. So...she was still mad then.

"Miss. Taylor," he began, putting every ounce of patience he contained into keeping his voice polite, professional. The air was quivering with silent, suppressed laughter in her direction; he could feel it. He knew exactly where she was, could see her faintly, even in pitch darkness. It was a momentary, fleeting sensation that was gone as quickly as it had come. He shook the feeling off, thankful for the darkness as he dug two knuckles into the throbbing side of his hip.

"Yes, Dr. Prince," she replied in a forcefully serious voice, though it shook with residual giggles.

"Could you not have waited just one more moment to turn off the-"

"Yeah, I could have," she interrupted him pointedly, and he felt her move past him to a lightbox on the wall. Severus followed, eyeing the back of her head suspiciously. She had planned that entire thing and it had actually worked. He winced as a twinge shot down his right leg. _Cunning little -_

She flicked on the lightbox switch to illuminate the X-ray, a white stretch of translucent plastic that only shed light to a portion of the large room but brought every bone, every nook and crevice into sharp relief. Severus' eyes were immediately drawn to the right hand on the radiograph, to an obvious fracture of the second bone in the middle of the man's hand. He smirked in satisfaction. Served him right, the brute.

However, Jasmine was still standing there, eyes gazing upward at the X-ray, her blue eyes electric in the bright glow of the lightbox. His hip throbbed angrily again and he was struck with an idea. Yes, he had promised himself he would apologize, somehow, to her and _perhaps_ indulge a small conversation in the future, but he had not promised he wouldn't mess with her just a _little_ bit. Not after she had so graciously concocted such a well-executed plan for him.

Clearing his throat quietly, he pointed at the fracture. "This, as I'm sure you can see, is a fracture of the second metacarpal bone of the right hand," he explained in a voice not dissimilar to the one he used around patients. "But what else do you see?" he then asked, dropping his arm. Jasmine looked up at him, her expression torn between pleasant surprise at his apparent interest in her opinion and suspicion as to why he was asking. She seemed to follow the hopeful assumption that he quizzing her and she squinted her eyes slightly, peering at the X-ray before she shrugged, turning back to him.

"That's all I see," she admitted. Her visage brightened further, hopeful. "You see something else?"

Smirking down his nose at her, giving no implication toward either answer, he stepped away from the lightbox.

"Come and find me when you've worked it out. It's...subtle."

And he passed behind her, through the darkness of the room to the door, where he slipped out into the brightly lit hallway. His smirk redoubled as he made his way back toward the emergency room. That ought to keep her busy for a least a short while.

Once allowed a bit of freedom from the nurse, Severus returned to the nurses' station, completed the order for Mr. Connor and discharged him, under the instructions that he was to visit the Orthopedic specialists upstairs to have his cast applied. He took particular pleasure in doing this, as he felt rather like he had not done much of his own usual work in the past week. Jasmine was now always there, ready to complete the orders, take the samples, make this call to that department, all the things that had kept him busy. He was beginning to understand why he seemed to find Oakes sitting around so often, and the nurses constantly moving.

He must have been sitting there for fifteen minutes, staring off into space, deep in thought with some sort of look on his face when Mark Oakes approached. The other doctor laughed, shaking his head.

"So you're alive," he stated, plopping down into a chair with a stack of charts; unsurprisingly, Dr. Oakes did not complete his notes after every case and was typically left with a pile of them by the time midnight rolled around.

Severus' stomach gave an odd twist at those words. He'd said it so casually.

"It appears that way," he answered, sitting up and blinking to rein in his attention. He instinctively reached out for something to do, but his hands found nothing, no chart, no papers to sign, no stacks of anything. Just a large scribbled-on, desk calendar taped to the counter, a mouse-pad by Loxicom. And his pen.

But just as he had moved to wake the computer screen, a forcefully sweet voice preceded her from around the corner.

"Dr. Prince!"

It was Jasmine; Oakes looked over in interest while Severus' eyebrows arched sharply with his smirk.

"I think I've found the other problem with the X-ray," she appeared in his periphery and moved toward the front of the nurses' station, with her back to the rest of the triage and the non-critical units.

For the first time in a while, Severus had to fight the urge to laugh out loud. He stifled it by clearing his throat. But the nasty grin on his face was impossible to hide.

"I sincerely doubt -" He finally looked up at her and found a pair of familiar, icily cold blue eyes staring back into his black ones. His smirk slid from view quickly and words failed him as he stared up at her. She was absolutely _furious._

 _"_ Tom Connor has a secondary fracture of the third metacarpal bone, just proximal to the first interphalangeal joint," She slapped the X-ray down on the desk in front of him and held up her middle finger very close to his face. She pointed to where her finger met the back of her hand. "Y'know, this one, right here?"

Dr. Oakes let out a hastily and poorly disguised laugh in the form of an odd coughing, gagging noise. Severus ignored him, preparing himself to knock Jasmine's hand out of his face. But she removed it quickly before he could do so and glanced over her shoulders, up and down the hall before she leaned closer over the desk. Her eyes bore dead into his and he hastily shut his mind to possible invasion by Legilimency. He knew she was a Muggle, but something about her stare, the density of it, the purposeful eye contact. Just to be cautious.

"I don't care if you wanna waste your time with bullshit like that but _don't_ waste mine," she snapped, no hint of the usual, often forced sweetness in her voice. And with one last frigid look spared for Dr. Oakes, she walked away, moving quite slowly compared with her typical warp-speed. Severus watched her go. That obnoxious feeling of guilt from earlier had returned to gnaw at him with renewed enthusiasm.

Dr. Oakes was laughing uncertainly, as though unsure whether that situation had been funny or not great and awkward. "Did you tell her there was something else on there?"

Severus exhaled, turning his attention back to the computer screen, forgoing a verbal response.

"But there wasn't really anything else?"

"No, Mark, there wasn't," he finally answered in a defeated, exasperated sort of voice, pulling up the chart for the upcoming patient.

Oakes whistled. "That's a pretty dick move, Prince, even for you. You know she's in school to be an RNP, right?"

Whoops.

Severus shook his head, rising from the chair to go scrub his hands and forearms to prepare to take his next case apparently solo. "No, I wasn't aware of that," he admitted, purposely keeping his voice indifferent, choosing not to betray the regret he felt.

It seemed Oakes no longer found the situation funny.

A dick move indeed.

And as evidence of this, Severus did not see Jasmine, even in passing, for the rest of the shift. As much as he would have liked to enjoy the time alone, the time to do his own exams, fill his own orders and discharge his own patients, he felt the lack in her presence was rather ominous. Had she already been on the phone to Sinclair to complain about him? Should he be expecting a telling-off? He opted not to think about it too hard.

The time was finally nearing two o'clock in the morning, signaling the end of Severus' shift as the attending physician. There weren't many cases for him to relay to Oakes on his way out, who was scheduled until four o'clock, so instead of doing so verbally, he left two charts on the other doctor's desk, before making a hasty and quiet exit through the back of the emergency room. He'd had a red letter day, so to speak, in that he had reduced one of his last patients, a young girl of eight, to tears. Not to mention his disastrous attempt at a prank on Jasmine, for which he was still paying richly as his guilt ate steadily away at him.

After changing into the clothes in which he had arrived at the hospital earlier, he clicked the combination lock on his locker and and left the immense changing room and showers. His jeans felt uncomfortable and scratchy in comparison to the soft, pajama-like scrubs he had removed, and he was just in the process of remembering that he had left his blasted doctor's coat on the chair at the nurses' station when he stepped out into the hallway to leave. He would be back the following night and could pretend to wear it again then. Behind him, he heard a door down the hall swing open as he began to move toward the exit to the parking garage.

"Dr. Prince?"

His throat tightened. It was Jasmine. Severus stopped walking and closed his eyes, defeated, cornered. He had been so hoping to make it out of the hospital without another interaction. The promise he had made to himself about apologizing to her had not been forgotten, but not for lack of trying. He paused, turning to see Jasmine, in normal jeans and a faded plain t-shirt, walking up the hall toward him, a backpack slung over her shoulder. He preferred to think he was imagining it, but her eyes looked somewhat puffy. But there was no mistaking the exhaustion she wore all over her face.

She had walked close enough to him to speak without raising her voice and a waft of coconut-scented body lotion came with her.

"Miss. Taylor," he began, his mind spinning as he rapidly rehearsed some sort of apology. But it seemed there was no need, as Jasmine interrupted him, even going so far as to hold up one hand to silence him. One of his eyebrows quirked but he remained quiet.

"Dr. Prince..." She addressed him again, his title and surname leaving her lips on a heavy exhaled breath. "Look, I know it's been weird getting used to working with someone-" She paused. "-with me," she corrected, giving an understanding smirk. "I know I can come on strong, and I know I can be a little...obnoxious, but..." He watched, silent, from behind cold, unreadable eyes, as she took another deep breath, her tired gaze finally settling on his.

"-But I was hired to work with you because no one else can or wants to. And now I see why. But I wanted to tell you that, even though you're one of the rudest doctors I've ever met, I think-" Her voice gained a note of firmness and confidence "...I think you're incredibly smart, you really know this stuff and I'm trying to _learn_ from you." She sighed again, her shoulders slumping. He wasn't sure why, perhaps the late hour, but he thought Jasmine looked older in normal clothes than she did in her scrubs. "I take my job really seriously and again, I know I'm not easy to work with either but...I'm just asking you to meet me halfway. You can be grumpy and mean and angry all you want, but _don't-"_ Her warm, blue eyes betrayed a hint of chill as she took another half-step toward him. _"-don't_ waste my time _._ If you want to teach me something, do it. If not, that's fine. Just remember you were a student once too."

Twice, actually. Severus couldn't help but think it.

He wanted to counter with something, anything, to either agree with or argue with her. But he just did not have the words. He had not fully prepared himself to apologize at all, and although he felt she did deserve some form of a remorseful word, it seemed she was not expecting one. This did not explain why he suddenly felt much worse. He'd have preferred for her to shout at him.

Finally, Jasmine let out a weary laugh, likely at the vacant expression on his face. He had not decided on one yet, still confused by the short woman in front of him and simultaneously admiring her ability to restrain whatever anger she truly felt toward him.

"Just...don't mess with me, and I won't mess with you. Deal?" She thrust one of her hands out toward him. Slowly, he took it, half expecting her to have joke-buzzer clamped between her fingers. But there was nothing but a small, soft hand in his grasp. It felt tiny in his larger one, but he found himself pleasantly surprised at the firmness of her grip. She shook his hand like she damn well meant every word she had said.

"Agreed," He finally spoke and Jasmine nodded once with finality, releasing her grip from their handshake.

"Well, have a good night, Dr. Prince," she bade him farewell, slipped past him through the exit to the parking garage, and was gone.

A/N: I hope you all enjoyed this one! I have my summer semester finals this coming Sunday so a possible delay in the next update but PLEASE let me know what you think of the story so far! Likes? Dislikes? I'm SO enjoying writing this story and I can't wait to show you guys what happens next heeheeheheeeeeeee

Note: In America, RNP is a Registered Nurse Practitioner (or NP, Nurse Practitioner, depending on your state. It's about a step below doctor status. Nurse practitioners can prescribe medications and such.

As always, reviews are SO appreciated, but never expected. = )

Thank you so much for reading!


	7. Broken Bones

The hallway to triage was bustling, nurses flying in all directions, as Jasmine and Severus stood off to one side. She was explaining the next case's notes while he half-listened, scowling at the opposite wall. His arms felt tight and restricted in his doctor's coat, the material was starchy, grating against his skin. He and Oakes had been reprimanded only minutes ago for not wearing their coats during exams, by one Linda Sinclair, who had 'popped by' the emergency room to 'check in'. He shifted his arms uncomfortably again and Jasmine looked up at him, halfway through her sentence.

"-and now Mom can't get it out..." Her voice trailed off, her face melting into exasperation at the look of discomfort on his. "Stop messing with it, it looks nice," she said, reaching out to bat his hand away from where he had been fussing with the sleeves. Severus snatched the chart from her.

"I'm only wearing it until she leaves," he grumbled, opening the file to read the first page for himself. Jasmine grinned, reminded of a fussy little boy in an itchy sweater grandma was making him wear. A moment later, his forehead furrowed in confusion and he looked up from the notes, pointing at the word she had written. "I'm sorry, does this say he stuck an _acorn_ up his nose?"

" _Yes,"_ Jasmine urged him, motioning toward the curtained off exam room across the triage area from them. "That's what I've been trying to tell- ugh, never mind, just-" Apparently fed up with his distraction by the coat and how little he had been listening, she reached out to grip his upper arms and bodily turn him in the direction of the the next patient. He scowled at her in indignation but let her do it, in the name of civility. He had not yet forgotten their agreement, nor his promise to himself to exercise a bit more patience when it came to Jasmine's assistance. But then again, it had only been a shy of a week since they had spoken...or rather, she had spoken at him.

"Just go in there and see for yourself."

Twenty minutes later, the three year old boy's screams neared a pitch that soon only dogs would be capable of hearing and Severus stepped back from the table again, sighing audibly under the noise, gathering his patience. The boy's mother, who was attempting to restrain him to very little effect, spoke calmly to him, shushing him gently. Which was the exact opposite of what he needed her to be doing. He had already asked her several times to hold him tighter while he put a very long instrument into her wiggling son's tiny nostril to retrieve the acorn he had stuffed into it. He felt the need for precision was fairly obvious in this situation.

At his wit's end, he looked to Jasmine, who had been standing at the foot of the bed, quiet the entire time, positioning the light when needed. While he appreciated the fact that she was making a clear effort to stay out of his way during exams ever since their one-sided conversation, he felt she could perhaps step in...at any moment...for instance, _this_ one. Fortunately, she seemed to glean this from just a quick glance and grinned serenely, moving toward the mother and her boy.

"Hey, Mom," she said gently, loud enough to be heard over the boy's cries. Her hand rested on the young woman's back. "Do you mind if I try holding Bryce for Dr. Prince?"

Clearly at the end of her own proverbial rope, the mother nodded hastily, rising from the bed, to pass the screaming toddler to Jasmine, who took him carefully, one arm braced beneath his rear, the other hand holding the back of his head, smoothing down his blonde hair. She hugged him against her chest and bounced soothingly on the balls of her tennis shoes.

"Hey, hey, shh...It's okay, I know it's scary-" She spoke to the boy in a soft voice, holding her own head close to his.

Severus stood back and watched, his interlocked, gloved hands palming the hemostats and gauze. And he watched, patiently, willingly allowing her the few extra moments to attempt to calm his patient before another attempt at the acorn retrieval was made. She really was so good at it, he had to admit. The boy had burst into tears almost the moment Severus set foot through the curtain; it was not uncommon with the younger children. He supposed it was a combination of his height, his hair, his generally uninviting appearance. But Jasmine seemed to have an almost hypnotic effect on the child as she stroked his back, rocking him back and forth, his screams dissolving into heavy sobs, and eventually into hiccups. Severus chanced a glance at the mother, whom he would have expected to be a bit annoyed that the nurse had done what she could not. Instead of this, he found a look of relief. Apparently, she was just thankful that her son had calmed down, even if not by her own touch.

Looking back to the child, to judge whether he felt comfortable approaching such a delicate face with a metal instrument again, Severus' eyes caught notice of Jasmine's left hand as it passed down the boy's back. Both of her hands were free of jewelry as always, but under the mix of fluorescent and surgical lighting, a thin tanline was visible around her ring finger, marking the space like a pale beacon where a ring was typically worn, or had been worn previously. He wondered briefly how he had only just then noticed it, especially at such a random moment, but he passed over it in favor of the more urgent matter; he could be curious about that later.

At the present, Jasmine looked up at him and nodded slowly, signaling that she felt the boy was ready.

"Ok, Bryce," she said in a very soft, soothing voice. "Hug me _real_ tight and Dr. Prince can get that silly thing out of your nose. Can you hug me really hard? _Squeeeeze-"_ She had slowly turned around so the boy's face was accessible over her shoulder and Severus dropped quickly onto the rolling stool behind her, to both give himself a better angle upward into the boy's nostril and accommodate for Jasmine's height. The hiccuping, crying little boy squeezed her neck and thick, curly ponytail tightly with his short arms, his eyes clenched shut. Severus saw his shot and took it.

"Ready?" He asked, raising his voice slightly as the boy began to squirm and cry again; he noticed the back of Jasmine's scrub top tighten across her shoulders with the strength she was putting into holding him still against her chest. The heel of his hand met the boy's forehead and his long fingers steadied his skull.

"Steady?" he asked again, the tip of the hemostats sliding into the nostril, to the tip of the acorn, where they clamped down. The boy's squeals gained strength again. He pulled downward gently, felt a satisfying little pop and the acorn emerged, glistening. "And, _there_ it is. That wasn't so bad, was it-"

It was the most innocent of sneezes. An unrestrained, sudden and violent, toddler-powered sneeze.

A delicate, warm mist of snot landed lightly across the side of Severus' neck and face as he had _fortunately_ turned his head to drop the acorn and hemostat onto a metal rolling tray beside him. He froze, a wave of disgust threatening to overwhelm him. Of all the bodily fluids he came into contact with, _snot was his least favorite._

The boy was giggling now in Jasmine's arms, clutching her tangled curls, and she laughed with him, bouncing him in her arms and wiping his nose with soft gauze, checking for blood. She glanced over her shoulder, to where Dr. Prince had just risen from the stool, looking as though he could faint with how badly he wanted to wipe his face off. She stifled her giggles as well as she could and handed the boy back to the mother, grinning in her effort not to give way to laughter again.

"Mom, if you could just hold this in case his nose bleeds a little bit," She handed the young woman a fresh gauze pad. Dr. Prince slipped through an opening in the exam curtains and disappeared. "I'll be right back to check his nose, then you two should be set to go home, okay?"

He had not gone far, but had made it to a hand-washing and disinfection station nearby. Jasmine felt like she would burst from holding in her laughter, until she had walked over to him, far enough away from the mother and son to not be heard. She was going to try, _really_ try, not to laugh when she saw the look on his face.

His broad, angular shoulders were hunched slightly over the sink while he washed his hands and she approached with caution, rounding his side slowly at a distance of about three feet. A good portion of the shorter bits of his hair had fallen into the un-snotty side of his face, hiding his eyes, so all she could see from her shorter vantage point were clenched teeth and a tense jaw. There was a moment of silence.

"It's _really_ not that funny..."His voice rumbled out of him in an annoyed drawl and Jasmine exploded with laughter, clutching the edge of the counter as it burst out of her. Severus' scowl deepened as he tore open a sterile, chlorhexidine skin wipe.

"It _really_ is though!" she answered a few moments later, her eyes glistening with tears. When she noticed the deep expression of his displeasure, she sighed with more giggles, shaking her head. "I'm so sorry. I'm not laughing at you, I promise. It was just really funny and cute," she explained, fanning her eyes with both hands, attempting to catch her breath. Severus scoffed from behind the skin wipe as he cleaned his entire face with it. The wipe moved to the side of his neck, over his scars. Jasmine stopped watching.

"Do you know what's even funnier?" he finally asked, using one finger to carefully clean the delicate skin around his left eye again, just for good measure. Jasmine watched him, the last traces of laughter still evident on her pink face. From behind the wipe, he looked down at her with only one visible eye, the brow above it arched sharply as a smirk of his own formed. "There's a lot more of it in your hair than there ever was on my face."

With a backward glance at her bushy ponytail, Jasmine laughed, shrugging her shoulders. "Oh, I know," she giggled. "That's okay. I should probably wash it this week anyway," she replied jokingly, taking a sterile wipe and turning from him toward the curtained exam room with a bit of twirl, so that her ponytail swung out and brushed the upper arm of his coat on her way. He cringed, as though he could physically feel all the millions of toddler microbes transfer from her hair onto his clothing.

" _Not_ an appropriate response..." he growled, turning to pull out yet another sterile wipe pack.

Within a few minutes, Jasmine had returned with a new chart and exchanged it for the one in which he had just made notes for the toddler's case of the acorn in the nose. He gave the permission for the boy and his mother to be sent home, under strict instructions to watch their son and not allow him any other objects small enough to fit into a nasal cavity.

While the nurse sped off to discharge the case, Severus stepped up to the desk at the usual nurses' station, flipping open the new chart she had handed him. His eyes scanned the page, skipping over the name and other boring bits to the information that mattered most: age, sex, presenting complaint.

His next patient was apparently a twenty-two year old white male, complaining of intense headaches, blurred vision and night terrors. Severus smirked as he read this; neurological cases were his favorite. The human brain was truly a wonder to him. Jasmine had not returned yet but he had this feeling she would pop out at him somewhere between the desk and the non-critical exam room in which this young man had been placed.

After ensuring his pen was still in his pocket, Severus made to close the chart and leave the nurses' station, but he paused, forehead furrowing as his eyes caught notice of the patient's name, written sloppily into the paperwork.

' _Roonil Wazlib'_

He paused, letting the chart fall open on the desk again, furrowed brow deepening as he stared down at that name. Why did it sound so familiar? It was obviously a fake name, or at least he hoped it was, but...why did he feel as though he had seen it before?

Suddenly, his mind's eye swam with the sharp vision of a copy of _Advanced Potion Making,_ a flooded, bloody bathroom and a lying, terrified sixteen year old boy.

Severus felt as though the floor had dropped out from beneath him, taking all of his internal organs with it. His heart did not stop, but began pounding as though someone were beating his chest with a fist. This moment of horror transformed quickly and effortlessly into a rage the likes of which he had not felt in quite a long time. It filled him from the tips of his toes to the top of his head, his entire body tingling as though it could burst into flame.

Jasmine had chosen a terrible moment to come speeding around the corner.

 _Imperio_

A soft, whimsical sort of expression slid over her face as she came to a stop in front of him. The wand did not leave it's hiding place but Severus felt the heady, odd, familiar sensation he had learned to associate with the connection to a Muggle mind and knew the nonverbal, wandless Curse was successful.

 _You will not go near the exam rooms. Go to the nurses' lounge and stay there._

His voice echoed these instructions inside her mind, and she obeyed them without question, Cursed to do so. But he did not watch her go. He knew his instructions were more than clear enough to keep her away from him. Instead, he removed the white doctor's coat and left it in a crumpled pile on the chair. His identification badge followed suit.

Mind blank and yet somehow simultaneously whirling, spinning with both fury and restrained panic, Severus picked up the chart and took it with him, forcefully keeping his gait even and purposeful; natural. Several nurses walked past him in the opposite direction but he could spare no concern for them and it seemed the same in return. The usual control he kept over his emotions, even down to the pace of his breathing was waning rapidly as he approached exam room number four. But it was then that he could feel it- Magic. Strong, familiar, _wonderful_ Magic. The back of his neck prickled and his rage redoubled.

The plexiglass door slid open as he pushed it gently sideways, a soft grating noise breaking the deafening silence. He took one step inside and there, laid casually back on the exam bed, smirking, was very last person on Earth he wanted to see. Severus stepped fully into the room, turning his back only momentarily to slide the door closed behind him. He then turned again, his back teeth clenched so tightly, he could swear they would all break.

The Boy Who Lived to make his life Hell raised himself up onto his forearms on the bed, uncrossing his ankles as his eyes grew wide behind the round glasses. The smirk slid off of his face.

 _"Blimey,_ it really is you..."

Severus' blood rushed in his ears, his heart hammering a pulse inside his head as he stepped further into the room. The door clicked faintly behind him.

 _Muffliato_

His hands were shaking; he couldn't stop it any longer.

 _Repello Muggletum_

"I wasn't sure it was you," Potter was saying as he slowly sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Severus was moving further into the room, the air within it humming deeply with Magic and energy. "-took me ages to be sure."

Maintaining his silence, he pulled open a drawer in the rolling, metal chest of supply drawers and withdrew a stack of cotton gauze pads. He placed them purposefully on the top of the stand, for future use. Then, at long last, he turned to face the now adult Harry Potter, who sat on the edge of the bed, staring up at him, amazed, bewildered. What was left of Severus' organs twisted into a knot as hatred surged up within him. If Harry had looked like his father at the age of eleven, it was nothing to how he looked now; he could have been James' identical twin. Except the eyes.

The length of curtain in front of the plexiglass door slid closed with a crisp ' _shing',_ though neither wizard had uttered a word _._ Severus stared into those green eyes defiantly, watching coldly as they shifted to the door and back again, a hint of uncertainty in the glance.

"So, you're ali-"

In a sudden movement even he did not expect, Severus' left hand reached out to clench a fistful of Potter's t-shirt, his right arm drew back before his fist connected with the center of Harry's grown-up face, with such force that he felt two of his own fingers break on contact. There was another more sickening crunch that did not belong to him and he released the hold on the shirt, so that the now Unconscious One slumped back onto the bed in a heap, blood streaming thickly from both nostrils. His glasses had flown from his face onto the white bedding beside him, broken, utterly ruined, but Severus ignored them, grabbing the gauze pads from the rolling stand to smash them heavily onto Potter's shattered nose, who stirred, moaning. Severus stood over him, watching with savage pleasure, his chest heaving with adrenaline and fury.

He had waited a VERY long time to do that.

"Oh my _god,_ Snape, what the-..."

The moment those green eyes had opened again, Severus reached out, seizing the front of his stretched, tousled shirt to pull him up. Harry winced hard at the second contact, sputtering as blood streamed into his open mouth from his clearly broken nose. The gauze had fallen from his face and lay forgotten on the bed but Severus did nothing to correct this; Potter could choke on his own blood before his very eyes right then for all he cared.

" _What_ are you doing here?" Severus finally spoke, his voice level, quiet and dripping with venom, his wrath spurred even further by the casual use of his abandoned surname. His right hand throbbed horribly but he hardly found it an issue at the moment. He could fix broken bones in a trice; he needed to know, _now_ , why Harry Potter of all people, had been the one to find him. After _five years._

"Christ...Snape, listen to me-" Harry coughed, spitting out a mouthful of blood onto the bed beside him. His voice was thick with the pain his broken face was causing him. "Please, just listen. I've been looking for you for years _-"_ Snarling like a rabid dog, Severus tightened his grip on the shirt. Harry winced again. "Please! Just give me a half hour-"

Knowing that he would get nowhere with verbal questions, Severus released his grip with a shove so that his fists made contact with Harry's shoulders. His right hand throbbed worse than ever but he was enjoying it. It fueled his anger and felt right, justified. But he would not hit him again. Instead, he took a step back and focused his mind, attempting to hastily modify his memory. If he could just forget that he had discovered him, all would not be lost. He forced himself to stare directly into the green eyes, ignoring a distantly familiar, dusty, dull stab of pain. But quite the opposite of the easy entry he had been granted into the mind of the fifteen year old Harry Potter during their disastrous 'lessons' of years past, Severus found a mental brick wall. It was solid, impenetrable without the aid of a wand and much calmer emotions than he was currently in possession of. It seemed someone had finally learned Occlumency and was employing his own specialty against him at that very moment. He swore, turning from the bed to run a flustered hand through the front, shorter bits of his hair, pushing them away from his face.

"Snape, seriously, I'm not here to-" Potter attempted to speak but Severus closed in on him again, his wand instantly in his hand, moving as a blur to his neck. The pointed tip dug sharply into the muscle and sinew that connected his head to his body. To his surprise, Harry froze, holding both hands out slowly, looking up at him with only his eyes. There was something mechanical, instinctual about the way he reacted. "Severus...just listen to me-"

 _Severus?_

"Fuck you, Potter," he spat, carefully throwing every ounce of loathing he contained into each syllable. He had regained some composure at long last and his voice remained quite steady as he continued. "You will Apparate from this room _now_ and _never_ return norbreathe a word of this to anyone, do you understand?" The tip of his wand sank deeper into Potter's neck. He cringed with pain, leaning away from it. "You may have finally managed some semblance of Occlumency, but I _promise_ you, I'm more than capable of destroying every last memory you contain, right now."

"Snape..."

"GO! NOW!"

 _Crack_

For a long while, Severus sat in that exam room on the rolling stool, bent forward, elbows on his knees, black wand held loosely in his left hand. Dark eyes stared absently at a crumpled fold in the bedding across from him, his mind running circles around itself. His right hand was positively killing him but he did not hasten to heal it. It throbbed in time with his heart as he sat there, breathing deeply, controlled, attempting to slow it. His gaze wandered to a red patch of saliva and blood on the white sheet of the exam bed. Other smaller flecks of blood lay in a fine spread around it. Despite the deep sense of dread and a very faint panicky feeling that he did not particularly enjoy or experience often, he allowed himself a bit of a smirk at the sight of Harry Potter's blood. Yes, his reaction had been quite brutish and _very_ Muggle but...damn, it had felt good.

This moment of satisfaction was fleeting, however, as his smirk slid from his face and he groaned, resting his forehead in his palms.

He knew.

Harry Potter, _of all people,_ knew exactly where he was, what he was doing, and most fundamentally, _alive._

How shortly should he expect others? How soon would he have owls pecking at his apartment windows or heaven forbid, sitting on his fucking car when he leaves the hospital? How quickly would word spread that Severus Snape was alive, in America, five years after his supposed death? Could Potter actually be trusted with this? Part of Severus was sorely tempted to go after him, Apparate then and there, pursue him and forcibly remove the memory. But the chance of permanent brain damage was rather high, especially since Potter had clearly become a decent Occlumens over the years. Another residual shot of anger hit him.

He sat up abruptly, heaving huge effort into calming his mind, reaching to the now loose knot of hair at the back of his neck to fish the elastic band out. His entire arm was aching from his broken fingers so he simply let his hair free for the moment. He was currently incapable of the dexterity required to make his usual knot.

After mending the bones in his fingers and locating a bottle of ibuprofen in a locked cabinet, Severus moved about the room, Vanishing the bloody gauze and soiled bed sheet. He replaced it with another, just as white, sterile and neatly folded as the one before it. He did a wand-lit search of the floor in the immediate area to ensure there were no larger, obvious drops of blood.

 _Roonil Wazlib_ 's chart Vanished from the counter near the door. With just the destruction of the physical record, it would be as though he had never walked through the swinging double doors. Sure, there would be evidence of him on security camera, perhaps in the lobby, but there were no cameras, by law, in any treatment area, no evidence of the patient that had simply disappeared. He would have to fiddle with the newly implemented electronic record system, but he had long since learned how to glitch computers.

Finally satisfied, he tucked the wand away and consciously lifted the Charms he had cast over the room. With another great heave of mental effort, he focused on the Imperius Curse he had placed on Jasmine, to bring it to the forefront of his mind. The connection was still there, but had drifted to a small corner reserved mainly for nurses.

 _Come find me.._ He echoed this to her through the connection of the Curse _._

He hastily tied his hair back into its usual place, wincing as his recently mended fingers gave a good, dull ache. The bones would still be tender after being shifted out and back into place in such a short period of time. Pulling it down from his hair, he examined the back of his hand, looking closely for any signs of bruising on his knuckles or other obvious signs that he had knocked someone unconscious only twenty minutes ago. But there was no discoloration thus far. He had a feeling it would bruise later on but he will already be home, alone, and able to apply a salve to it. Under the impression that he looked generally undisturbed, at ease, (or at the very least, not as though he had recently considered rendering a young man brain damaged) he left the exam room and approached the nurses' station.

The deeply uneasy feelings of dread, that tingling panicky sensation, the rage, his anger, all of it was shoved to the very back of his mind, shutting it out as Jasmine came around the corner, looking positively ordinary, grinning in her usual, calm sort of way. Severus released the Imperius Curse without allowing her to break her stride and she emerged from it immediately, blinking, brightness illuminating her eyes again. Her peaceful but hollow grin under the Curse grew into a light, genuine smile. She seemed to recognize him a bit slower than usual.

"Hey!" she greeted sweetly, pausing at the edge of the counter. Severus tossed his coat over the back of the chair and sat down at the computer, reapplying his identification badge casually. Jasmine did not seem to notice that he had taken it off in the first place as her friendly expression quickly morphed into one of concern. "Are you okay?" she asked, groomed eyebrows furrowed as her gaze bounced all over his face. A thrill of that prickly panic gripped him. Did he have blood on him that he had missed? In what way was he outwardly portraying that no, he was not completely 'okay'?

He did not look up at her, but instead remained focused on the computer, on the growing list of incoming cases. "I'm fine," he replied, and should have left it at that. But he continued, annoyed that she had noticed, despite his valiant effort to hide it. "Why do you ask?" He finally looked up, to find Jasmine still studying him, as though he were a particularly interesting specimen in a lab.

"I dunno, you seem... _not_ okay, or something," she explained, resting her forearms on the counter between them. She wore a confused expression that hinted at her own uncertainty as to why she had asked. "I'm not trying to pry. It was just the look on your face, I guess."

This explanation did little to ease his worry that his mask of indifference was failing him. He did not feel as though he had exhibited any outward signs of the tumultuous emotions he was facing internally. It was one of the greatest things he had taught himself- to look 'okay' when one was most definitively _not_ 'okay'. Then again, perhaps it was simply Jasmine. She did seem to have an uncanny ability to pick up on others' emotions and feelings, despite what they portrayed outwardly, and suit her own attitude toward whatever the other person deserved. She had already displayed an aptitude for detecting when his mood was deteriorating, as evidenced by the way she pulled him from exams, when possible, and sentenced him to a brief rest and cups of coffee or tea. Adversely, in some of his worse moods, Jasmine seemed fueled by it, more than happy to match his nastier comments or tones with even nastier ones of her own. His hip still bore a faint bruise from her elegant trap in the radiology suite. Any and all agreements aside, by no means was Severus ready to confide in her the horror of the past half hour.

He looked straight into her eyes, arranging his own to reflect absolutely nothing in return. It was an almost physical feeling, as though a heavy, metal gate had slammed shut behind his black irises. "I assure you, Miss Taylor, I'm perfectly fine," he explained, pouring heavy measures of patience into his voice. "Now, could you please go see to the next case?"

Frowning in a way that suggested she did not entirely believe him, Jasmine walked away, toward the triage area, where staff was bustling, running here and there for this or that. Once alone again, Severus allowed himself a moment to flex his aching fingers under the desk. He leaned back to glance at his knuckles again. They were faintly red but still, no noticeable bruising yet. With a glance at his watch, he found the time was nearing midnight; he was due to finish his shift at two o'clock. If he could only make it another two hours, he would then be free to go home and be anxious in private.

Two o'clock did eventually arrive, but Severus was still finishing notes, as always. The emergency room had reached that time of night where things were beginning to slow down, patients had already been seen to and treated or were in the final stages of their visit. Jasmine had finally stopped moving and was seated in Dr. Oakes' usual chair. She had pulled multiple sticky notes out of the pockets of her scrubs and was now entering information from them into patient records on the computer. She would then shred the sticky notes in the paper shredder. Severus had noticed this pattern of hers. His hand still ached but finally, after a hasty and barely legible _-SP, MD,_ he closed the file and clicked his pen shut, flexing his fingers as he did so.

He rose to his feet and was in the process of deciding whether he felt foolish enough to Apparate home as he left the nurses' station, stethoscope in hand. But a light voice broke through the conversation in his mind, just as he had walked past Jasmine, still seated at Dr. Oakes' usual stretch of desk.

"Hey," She said it quietly, gently. He paused and turned toward her, too drained for any facial expression at all, much less one that required actual effort to maintain. In lieu of a verbal indication that he had heard her, he arched his eyebrows, giving an impatient sort of nod. _Yes?_

Jasmine continued, ignoring his attitude. "Whatever you've got going on-" He finally opened his mouth to insist again that he was fine, but she shook her head, holding up her hand. "Yeah, yeah, you're great. But just in case you _aren't,_ I wanted to tell you that...it's gonna be alright." Her apex of her cheeks rounded slightly with her peaceful smile. "Whatever it is. No matter how bad, it's always gonna be okay."

As unnecessary as he found her statement, as much as he wanted to tell her that it might bloody well NOT be alright NOR okay, he could not ignore how much comfort her words brought him. The tightly knit ball of suppressed emotions in the pit of his gut seemed to loosen a bit, the tightness in his chest relaxed somewhat. Her voice alone had something so soft and soothing in it; he heard her use it with patients all the time. It was as though nurturing and care had been laced into her very vocal cords.

Despite this, Severus rolled his eyes. "I suppose you passed your psych rotation, then..." he replied dully, smirking as the soft, caring expression on her face fell comically into annoyance. She glared back at him but rolled her bottom lip beneath her top teeth to stifle the grin she was fighting. She wanted to tell him to fuck off; he could practically see it swimming in a bubble above her head.

"Get outta here," she grumbled instead, giving a jerk of her head toward the far back doors of the emergency room.

Too soon perhaps.

It was only once he had made it back to his car that Severus realized how much better he felt. The memories of the event from earlier, though still crisp and sharp in his mind, brought him less anxiety, less panic. They seemed somehow more distant, and he felt he could finally focus, clear-headed. Despite his earlier desire to Apparate, he opted to drive, feeling as though he could use the time to think and relax his emotions. It had been at least two, nearing three hours since Harry Potter had Apparated from the exam room at Boston Central Hospital. He did not like to flatter himself by thinking that if he had gone immediately and told someone, Severus would have already been confronted by something or someone else from the Wizarding World. His body and mind relaxed even further.

However, after an admittedly peaceful drive home in the dark and silence of his car, as the front tires pulled into the parking garage, he felt it again, as plain and distinct as before. Magic. Mountainous goosebumps covered his arms but the same rage from before did not fly up to meet him. He gave no outward reaction at all to the prickling sensation at the back of his neck and the pounding of his heart.

He might actually kill Harry Potter, but at least he would do so calmly.

He parked the car, and got out with no hesitation, wand in hand; he had driven home with it in his lap. The parking garage at two in the morning was quite empty of people, but full of cars, making it very easy to hide, but also very easy to be ambushed. And if Potter still had that Cloak...The odds were not in his favor currently. So he doubled the odds in his favor and cast a Shield Charm around himself, an invisible bubble to protect him as he purposefully locked his car and walked straight out to cross the garage to the stairs.

The first red jet of light that flew at him from a car halfway down the garage ahead of him had been expected. It hit the Shield and broke it, but Severus hastily replaced it with another, stronger, directly in front of himself. The sudden flight of his wand from his hand, however, caught him admittedly by surprise as the Disarming Spell hit him in the middle of his back. But before he could Summon it back to his hand, both of his arms were wrenched behind his back by what felt like giant, invisible hands, his wrists painfully digging against one another as a cold, heavy stretch of enchanted chain coiled tightly around them.

Ah. He recognized these 'handcuffs'. He'd worn them before, long ago.

He stopped dead in his tracks in the middle of the parking garage, sighing heavily with both fatigue and exasperation. His head fell back slightly and his eyes rolled to the top of his skull before sliding shut.

"Potter the Auror then, are we?" he asked of the emptiness loudly, the deepest notes of his voice echoing against the concrete walls.

Directly behind him, there was a soft swishing of fabric.

"Snape the doctor then, are we?"

Harry stepped around his side, into his line of sight. Severus' eyes narrowed on his nose, a smirk forming nastily on his face. It had apparently been mended, along with his glasses, but he had failed to heal any of the deep purple bruises that had formed beneath both of his eyes. Despite appearances, Potter grinned in a very self-satisfied sort of way, his wand held steady in his hand, pointed directly at the middle of Severus' chest.

"Give me thirty minutes of your time or I send word right now that I've found Severus Snape alive," He put it simply, his eyebrows raised, one of his shoulders shrugged as though it would mean nothing to him to do it.

Severus snorted a derisive laugh. "Blackmail has been approved by the Ministry," He raised his eyebrows in sarcastic surprise. "My, my, things have changed, haven't they?"

Potter laughed, tossing his arms. "I'm not here for the Ministry," he answered impatiently. "I'm here for-...well, myself, I guess. To thank yo-"

"Which you have now done. You may go," Severus spoke over him hastily but in a lazy, bored sort of voice. An icky, squirming feeling wriggled in his intestines. With a simple twist of his wrist, a quick, firm tug using both shoulders, a silent Softening Charm, he wrenched his hands free from the Ministry-issue 'handcuffs' Potter had attempted to subdue him with.

"And you can have these back, dolt." He allowed him one moment to look surprised before he dropped the length of heavy, solid chain into his hand and moved to walk away.

Potter's arm was quick.

" _Expect-"_

But Severus was quicker. He snatched the wand unceremoniously from Harry's hand before he could finish the first half of the spell. No Magic necessary. Hogwarts teachers, past and present, typically had excellent reflexes. He held it out of reach as he turned back to him.

"Thirty minutes," he said firmly. "Half an hour, then you leave me alone and tell no one. Swear to it."

Green eyes glared back at him from behind round glasses.

"My word."

Severus pushed Potter's wand back into his hand and Summoned his own. It zoomed back to him from a few feet away and after seizing it, he reached out to grip his upper arm firmly, to take control of the destination before the other could. Severus spun into darkness and both wizards Disapparated with a deep, loud _CRACK_ like that of nearby thunder _._ A car alarm began to scream in the empty garage they had left behind.

…...

A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed this one! I have been excited to write this chapter since I even thought of the idea for the story haha I sooo appreciate your reviews and kind comments on this story. And I did really well on my summer exams! Got an A and a B overall. So woohoo! I now have the next month to just work and write and do whatever I want before I go back in mid-August. So leave a review if you'd like, or drop me a private message if you're shy, but of course, reviews are a gift and not expected in any way. Thanks so much for reading!

Fun Fact: The acorn in the nose is based on a true story. Yours truly, at around age 4 or 5. Luckily, my mom is a nurse so she popped it out and I didn't have to go anywhere but yeah...I did that. Hehehe


	8. Under My Skin

They did not Apparate far. The pair of wizards emerged with another _Crack,_ deep in a dark alleyway that ran along the side of an old brick building. Severus knew Potter had not the faintest idea where they were now and that was somehow comforting to him; he had the upper hand. It was for this reason he had made a point of grabbing the others' arm first, which he quickly released once both had regained solid footing. Beside him, finally standing shoulder to shoulder, Severus noticed with dull surprise that the adult Harry Potter stood only a bit shorter than his own height of six foot, three.

"Er...Where are we exactly?" Potter asked stupidly, already two steps behind as Severus began walking up the alley, sliding his wand into the sleeve of his long-sleeved shirt. His shoulders hunched as a brisk October gust of wind came whipping through the mouth of the alley.

He rolled his eyes with an audible groan, shrugging on a worn, black cotton, zip-up sweatshirt.

"The _Auror_ Potter..." he muttered sardonically, glaring sideways at him and tugging his now loose knot of hair from beneath the lowered hood of the sweatshirt. Harry had caught up and was pulling the neck of his jacket across his t-shirt as both rounded the corner onto a cracked sidewalk, dimly lit in orange by a flickering streetlight overhead.

He had brought them to a small bar only a few blocks away from his apartment; a tiny, dark hole in the wall that he had discovered while walking when he had first moved to the area. The owners seemed like...normal people but seemed to have very little concern for the law, as they often stayed open past the two AM alcohol cut-off of Boston.

The door swung open on the inside of a very dingy, dimly lit barroom, the floors and walls themselves reeking of decades of cigarette smoke and an underlying generally moldy smell. Despite the time standing at nearly a quarter to three in the morning, there were a few small groups of people inside, even a few playing a game of pool. He did not come here often, but he knew it existed, so it would do. He also felt most heavily that here, Harry Potter was least likely to be recognized. It may have seemed a silly precaution, but truthfully, he was unsure whether his fame had spread over the past five years. He had not heard a word of anything related to Harry Potter or Voldemort since arriving in America. But then again, he was not exactly 'on the radar' with the American Wizarding community either.

They passed a row of empty booths against the wall until they reached one of the furthest from the door, a booth where the already limited light in the room dissolved into even deeper shadows. Severus stopped at this one and pointed at the one half of the booth seats that would put Potter's back to the front door of the bar, so he, Severus, could sit facing it. Just a precaution.

"Stay here," he instructed, but scowled as Harry hesitated, his expression suspicious. Severus rolled his eyes impatiently, motioning toward the bar. "If you're going to be talking to me for the next..." he tugged back the sleeve of his sweatshirt to glance at his watch. "-twenty-six minutes, I'm getting a drink. Do sit _down,_ Potter."

The younger wizard finally sat and Severus turned toward the bar, contemplating a possible escape strategy. He could very easily step straight into the men's room and Apparate but _apparently,_ Potter knew where he lived. So the idea was no use. He was exhausted, drained to the bones and overwhelmed. All he wanted at that point was to sit down with a glass of whiskey and simply exist, even if it meant listening to someone he had hoped to never see again in his life.

Despite himself, Severus returned to the booth with two short tumblers of whiskey, one of which he set down in front of Potter, the other, he kept for himself. He took the glass with him as he slid into his side of the booth and moved all the way to the wall, to turn somewhat sideways and lean his back into the corner. He focused and Conjured one of his own rolled cigarettes. Also a necessity at this time. After lighting it with a discreet snap of his fingers, he drew deeply on it and inhaled, before releasing the smoke in a thin stream between his lips.

"Twenty-four minutes," He leaned forward to tap a bit of ash into a filthy glass tray, the last of the smoke in his lungs escaping on the breath of his word. "Speak."

Harry grinned, shaking his head. "First of all, you're mad if you think I'm drinking _anything_ you put in front of me," He pushed the glass of amber liquid away from from, before abruptly reaching across the table and swapping it with the one Severus had kept for himself; the one he had been about to pick up. He stared at him, eyebrow arched for a long moment before he took the swapped glass, leaned back and drank a totally harmless sip from it. Harry ignored this but took a sip from what he had claimed as his glass.

"So, you're alive," he stated baldly.

Severus had expected some sort of a physical response to those words, had even braced for it, and not without reason. His heart gave several strong, hypertensive beats in a row, his stomach twisted as a bit of panic gripped him. How many times had he imagined hearing those words in that certain context? And how _few_ times had he imagined the speaker to be Harry Potter? The feeling receded rapidly as his fatigue began to creep up on him like the tide coming in.

"It would appear so," he answered just as casually, tapping more ash from his cigarette before taking another pull from it, quite aware that he was being gaped at.

Harry laughed quietly, shaking his head in what appeared to be disbelief, an idiotic, pleasantly surprised grin on his face. "I just can't believe it's you," he said quietly. "Everyone, _everyone_ thinks you're dead."

Severus swallowed another sip of whiskey before answering. "That would be the point in staging one's own death, Potter, and I'd obviously prefer it to _stay that way."_ He glared at Harry through the haze of smoke between them, hoping to emphasize his point.

But the younger of the two did not seem to be paying attention as he took another sip of his own whiskey. "I mean, you're buried at Hogwarts..."

At these words, Severus felt the heaviest, most beautiful ache deep in his chest and he cleared his throat, focusing quite hard on tapping more ash into the tray. "I'm buried at Hogwarts?" he asked in a purposely casual tone, irritated that he was unable to make eye contact at the moment. Harry looked over at him, nodding, surprise and shock still evident on his face.

More to move past the moment than anything, Severus took one last drag from the cigarette before he put it out, turning to sit properly in the booth, straightening out his shoulders and spine to face Potter. He exhaled the smoke in his lungs and fanned it away. "You said everyone thinks I'm dead, _present_ tense. And yet, here you are," he paused, surprised to find himself genuinely curious. "How did you know?"

Harry shut his eyes momentarily, brow furrowed in his attempt at recollection. Severus understood the struggle; five years was not a great leap of time by any means, but it was enough to make some details very hazy indeed. He shrugged after a few moments.

"Well, I didn't know. Not at first," he explained lamely. "Your body was never examined by Healers or anything like that, because...well, they thought your cause of death was obvious. Not a lot of bodies were examined thoroughly... But all along, something about it just didn't feel right. I didn't really start thinking properly about it until about a year after the Battle though.." He glanced down to wipe a random water spot off the edge of his glass. "That first year afterward was kind of..." He trailed off, gave a stiff shake of his head and took another, larger swig of whiskey.

He did not need to finish his statement; Severus understood. He too had experienced the nightmares, the sleeplessness, the regret, remorse and grief for those whom they had watched die around them. He had been to that dark place where everything hurt all the time, angry at the world, at himself, at nothing. He had been there twice. He knew exactly what he meant.

"So, a doctor?" Potter turned the conversation again, clearly in an effort to change the subject. "How did you manage that so quickly? Don't they go to school for a really long time?"

" _Muggles_ go to school for a 'really long time'," Severus corrected sharply. At the somewhat blank look on Potter's face, he sighed, folding his forearms across one another on top of the table, preparing to explain. What did it matter? He knew all he needed to know already. Severus had left a majority of his most precious memories to him just moments before his 'death', under the idea that he would never see him again, ever. And look at the good that had done. He linked his fingers together.

"This may come as a surprise to you, Potter, but since the day I met you, after I had agreed to... _supervise_ you, I had the feeling that, eventually, I might die in my efforts. So I began researching ways to evade that. I had only finished my studies at the beginning of what would have been your seventh year."

''And then you died," Harry supplied, his grin no longer evident, his features flat.

Severus stared back at him. "Then I died."

"Reborn as 'Dr. Prince'," He laughed, nodding his glass toward him in acknowledgment before taking another small sip. Severus watched him do this, hating him on a very deep level. "Couldn't be bothered to change your name too far though."

"I dropped the name of my useless father. That was change enough." Severus said this with such finality that Harry did not pursue the topic further and instead silenced himself with another sip.

With the motion of his left hand bringing the glass to his lips, Severus' eyes were drawn to a glint of gold under the dim but oddly green tint to the room around them. His features relaxed in annoyance. So there was a Mrs. Potter. He glanced down at the empty glass in front of him. _Another_ Mrs. Potter. He wished that glass was full again.

Passing over this, he began, "That... _web_ in the hallway a few weeks ago?" His eyebrows contracted into a scowl, remembering how unnerved he had felt at the time and noting how ridiculous he now felt at the present moment.

A very wry smirk broke the Auror Potter's expression as though he'd had a feeling he would ask. "Facial Recognition Charm," he stated with a touch of pride. "I invented it."

"Genius," Severus' remarked lazily, once again glancing at his watch. Eighteen minutes.

"Well, it worked," Harry replied defensively. "I'm telling you, Sna- Er...I really wasn't sure it was you. You look different." Green eyes searched his face and Severus hastily turned the topic again, loathing himself for yearning for news from the life he had left behind.

"Professor McGonagall was made Headmistress, I presume?" he asked, absentmindedly twirling his empty glass on the rickety table top between them. When Harry nodded, Severus added, "Rightfully so." He would have drunk to her if he could.

There was another pause in conversation while Harry drank the last of his glass. He let out a short laugh, shaking his head as something else came to mind. His married left hand came up to run through his mess of black hair. "I made a huge fuss about your portrait being put in the Head's office," He groaned, rubbing his face heavily under his glasses. "I'll look like such a prat-"

"My portrait?" Severus repeated, confused. "Why would I-"

"You were Headmaster," Harry explained this plainly, as though Severus had forgotten. "Your portrait belongs in the Headmaster, or Mistress', office."

Severus rolled his eyes, leaning back to sit against the lumpy bar booth behind him. "I was Headmaster for about ten minutes, on the Dark Lord's orders; I hardly think a portrait was necessary."

With that increasingly annoying, understanding smile plastered to his face, Potter shrugged. "You stopped Voldemort and the Carrows killing of a lot of students in ten minutes then."

Another silence descended. Severus was tempted toward a sarcastic, shitty comment about his wedding band but he ignored it, opting for awkward silence versus the possibility of wandering too closely to the topic of marriage, and the things that go with it. Fortunately, it did not seem that Potter even had the intention of mentioning the memories he had seen, as he shook his head, leaning forward slightly to push the tips of his fingers up into his hairline. As he did this, Severus' eyes flickered to the lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead. It was still there, but very faint; nothing like the travesty of a scar he had been left with on his left forearm after the destruction of Voldemort.

Harry shook his head, grinning. "I just don't understand," he admitted, gesturing at his own neck to emphasize the jagged scars on Severus'. " _How_ did you not die? How is any of this possible? I mean...I went to your _funeral!_ And why come to America? Why are you even here doing this? Living like a Muggle and..."

All of his questions seemed to have formed fully in the past twenty minutes and they tumbled out one after the other. Severus kept track of them, wanting to answer them completely and in order, so that he would be left with no further questions, no reason to return.

"Firstly, Potter, there are some forms of Magic to which, even to this day, you remain ignorant," he began slowly, with every intention of continuing, but Harry cut in, arching one eyebrow sharply.

"Oh, I'm fully aware that you know Magic I've never heard of..." He said this with quite a snarky edge to his voice and in such distinct wording that Severus was reminded forcibly, unmistakably of Lily. This was not made any easier by forcing himself to glare in annoyance into those now impenetrable green eyes, forcing himself to endure that distantly familiar stab of pain. He continued as though he had not been interrupted.

"And I came to America to study and work as a doctor because I wanted to start over," Severus admitted this outright, hoping to drive home the point that Harry could tell _no one._ "I wanted to live a different life, do something else, be _away_ from everyone and everything and-" He cut himself short. His voice had gained momentum and passion had dripped into it accidentally.

"-move on," Harry supplied.

Severus rolled his eyes. "If that is what you'd like to call it, then yes. 'Move on'." He glanced down at his wrist on the table again, checking his watch. Six minutes.

At this, the younger wizard laughed. "Well, you have done," he replied, motioning across the table at him. "You look like you've lost about two stone?"

Wonderful. They had arrived at his appearance again.

Severus shifted awkwardly, leaning back and pushing both hands into the front pockets of his sweatshirt. "I don't exactly live in a castle with a hundred servants and three meals a day anymore," he answered, figuring that with only five minutes left, he could indulge the topic a bit. Let Potter get it all out. "I also lift human bodies manually a lot more often."

"Well, yeah, that's true," Harry laughed, staring at him as though he had never seen him before. "I dunno how, but you do look so different. Your hair is really long and you wear it back, you aren't pale as parchment anymore, wearing normal clothes. You just..." He paused, searching for a word. Severus felt distinctly uncomfortable. "You look healthy." Potter finally stated with decisiveness. "That's why it took me so long to make contact. I wasn't sure-"

Severus interrupted. "Yes, speaking of which," he said with a bit of volume, hoping to shift their rapidly closing conversation elsewhere. "I hope you understand how unbelievably stupid you were in coming to the hospital earlier. I live here, mostly, as a Muggle, as you noticed? I'm not connected to any Wizarding communities, I have no contacts here." Harry opened his mouth, likely to interject that this was precisely the reason he should at least return to Britain. Severus was way ahead of him and did not allow him to interrupt.

"And I _like it that way."_ He placed particular emphasis on these words. "I will not return. I've started a new life for myself here. I'm _fine_ here." He stared directly at the green eyes, boring into them with his dark ones. "Swear to me you won't tell anyone I'm alive."

There was a moment of hesitation that felt like a lifetime. Severus felt a quick stab of horror that he was about to admit he had already told someone else, perhaps his spouse, but finally, at long last, Potter nodded. "I swear, I won't say a word. If this is what you really want-"

"It is."

"...-then I won't say a word. I owe you that much."

Severus glanced down at his watch again. Two minutes.

Suddenly, he remembered something. Something he had nearly forgotten. He groaned, reaching up to rub his eyes in mingled exhaustion and exasperation. "Your presenting complaint," he grumbled. "In your file at the hospital. It said 'intense headaches, blurred vision and night terrors'. "

Harry laughed lazily, pointing one finger back at him. "I wondered if you would catch that. I thought the name would tip you off faster though."

Severus glanced down at his watch. Forty seconds.

"Your half hour is drawing to a close, Potter," he announced, casually sliding both his and Harry's empty glasses to the side, leaving the stretch of table between them clear. "Any last questions?"

"Well...I mean, yeah, I've got a thousand more-"

Before he could continue, however, Severus held up one finger for silence, his eyebrows arching steadily as he watched the second hand on his watch tick closer and closer.

"And...three...two...one-"

THUD.

At the stroke of twenty-four minutes exactly, Harry Potter's eyes rolled to the top of his head and his upper body crumbled forward. Severus watched coldly, making no attempt whatsoever to soften the blow as his already bruised face made hard, abrupt contact with the table between them. The round glasses bent in half again, one of the lenses freshly cracked. Rolling his eyes, Severus slid to the end of the booth and stood up to approach the side where Potter now sat unconscious. It was no more than he deserved, swapping drinks so _cleverly_ with a Potions Master.

"Idiot boy..." he grumbled, patting his jacket pockets until he found the one in which the Invisibility Cloak had been stowed. He pulled the material from within it.

The Cloak was like holding water in his hands, as soft, fluid, light and flawless as it had been for the past age. After draping it over him and ensuring he was completely covered, unconscious Potter was levitated from the booth and guided toward the door by casual use of the wand in his sleeve. The bar owners nor the other patrons seemed to care or even notice that two men had entered only thirty minutes ago, and only one appeared to be leaving.

In the same alley to which they had Apparated earlier, Severus let Potter thud to the ground without cushion, his limp body making a dull, heavy noise beneath the Invisibility Cloak. For a long moment, he stood there, staring down at the invisible form of Potter. Or at least where he understood him to be.

He could do it now. He could erase or alter the previous twenty-four hours in his mind. Yes, he could even go all the way back and erase any notion that he might still be alive, but that would mean erasing the last four years of his life. _Four years._ As much as he hated Potter, as much as he would like to hit him again, he felt he just could not bring himself to do that much damage. Especially not if the memories from those four years might contain some of the happiest moments of his life thus far.

With an annoyed growl, Severus fully extracted his wand from his sleeve and pointed it at an empty, crushed soda can on the ground nearby. It scuttled across the grimy pavement and disappeared under the Invisibility Cloak. Kneeling, he pulled back the edge of the invisible fabric and nudged the can beneath Potter's hand, curling his limp fingers around it.

 _Portus_

Covering Potter again, so that only a bare stretch of litter-strewn pavement was visible, Severus waited the full two minutes, before there was a faint rumble, a vibration through the concrete beneath his shoes, and then stillness. To be sure the Portkey had worked, he stepped forward into the area where Potter would have been laying. Nothing.

With a heavy groan, Severus Disapparated, his mind, body and soul whirling into blackness. His living room appeared before his eyes a moment later, but he did not remain there long. He moved immediately toward the first door on the right down the hallway that led to his bedroom, his now angrily bruised hand reaching for the handle to wrench it open. The gust of air from within was so welcome, so needed, so comforting. He stepped into his Charmed, immense potions lab, discarding his sweatshirt and pulling the long sleeves of his shirt up to his forearms. The elastic band was fished unceremoniously from his hair, releasing it to lay between his shoulder blades in a wavy, obsidian mess. All ten of his fingers slid into his hairline and he groaned deeply in his chest, massaging his scalp and the billions of hair follicles that had been pulled back for so long. Long legs buckled as he dropped onto his favorite stool.

His body moved mechanically, as though under the influence of some enchantment; his mind was simply too overwhelmed to process anything else at that time. He reached to his left, to a shelf set into the stone wall. A small tub of paste sat there, the rim of the jar crusted and tight with neglect. Fortunately, it was not something he needed to use often.

As he used his wand to open the lid, versus adding yet more strain to his recently mended and aching fingers, he sighed heavily, closing his eyes as snippets of the previous twelve hours came to him in random, rapid succession.

He had found a dull palate knife in a drawer and used his left hand to take a wedge of the clay-like substance from within the jar.

How _dare_ he show up at the hospital like that, compromising every security and secrecy measure Severus had put into place for himself? How could he have possibly thought that was a good idea?

Using the knife, he spread small amounts of the clay to the back of his right hand, the heat from his body softening the substance into the consistency of a cream. The deep purple and blue gracing his knuckles began to recede as he put the knife down and rubbed the remainder into his hand like lotion.

Harry Potter still had just as much nerve, just as much cheek and laziness, arrogance, as he had contained all those years ago when he was once his student. Severus looked up from his knuckles.

The adult man that had sat across from him that night was the same, terrified and obnoxious First year that had set foot into his classroom all those years ago, looking exactly after James but with all the sass and attitude of his mother. It was a truly unfavorable combination.

Now that little shit was all grown up, married, fit right into life like a glove after earning himself eternal fame. And yet he had searched for Severus for four years? What in the hell for? To thank him? God, a thank you felt like a slap in the face. He had not done it for _Harry_ , he'd done it for _her,_ to honor her and protect the thing she had died for.

That was one of the main reasons behind leaving him those memories.

 _Those_ memories in particular.

 _For her. Not you._

And he had gotten _so_ close to forgetting. He had gone weeks, months, a full _year_ without even a thought of what he had lost. No wandering thoughts of memories long past, no bouts of all-out depression, nothing. Just living, working, experimenting with medicine, Magic, Potions. _Living_.

And then her son, as per his modus operandi, had to step in and FUCK IT ALL UP.

" _I mean, you're buried at Hogwarts..."_

Severus blinked as those words echoed in the back of his mind, his scowl deepening as he dipped the palate knife back into the tub to pull out more clay. He honestly wasn't surprised to hear that; no one would have known where to find his parent's graves and it seemed someone had kindly considered that he might not like to buried at the tiny, run-down cemetery in Spinner's End...His throat was suddenly thick with emotion that he was too tired and too alone to suppress. The knife in his hand swam momentarily, but he coughed deeply to shake it off, focusing much harder than necessary on applying the cream to his knuckles a second time.

There was also the stupid portrait in the Headmaster's office, which Potter had apparently demanded be put there in all his post-battle authority. Had he a say in that matter, Severus would have requested it not to be put up, obviously. But the fact that Harry had made such a fuss over it, only to find him years later, alive, brought him a satisfied smirk. Served him right. He hoped the Severus Snape in his portrait was a complete and utter displeasure, all of the time.

One fat, round drop of warm liquid fell onto his wrist.

The days that followed were something of a blur. He had not slept well at all, and when he did manage a few hours, they were spent tossing in those infuriatingly light planes of sleep that somehow left one even more tired. Consequently, his mood deteriorated. The night of Potter's appearance, after his knuckles and hand had been healed of all bruises, he immediately set to work in the lab, putting the ingredients together for a Sleeping Potion. He knew he would sleep hard that night out of pure exhaustion but he also knew the following nights might not be so easy. And the particular potion he was concocting took three days to mature. He had passed out at his workbench again.

He had been a right nightmare at the hospital as well; Severus felt adult enough to admit it. He had snapped at Jasmine so badly one night, she looked very close to the point of slapping him. Severus remembered how her eyes had flashed and he noticed her shoulder and hand jerk, the movement minuscule, barely noticeable. But he had seen it all the same, his eyes drawn downward by the motion. He had stared at her hand for a moment before bringing his gaze back up to meet hers.

Her emotions were visible straight through her eyes like the clearest glass. She was furious with him but also curious and concerned; curious, perhaps, as to why he was in such a temper to begin with and concerned that she was unsure how to help him this time. He had glared back at her with nothing reflected, daring her to do it. She had eventually turned away first to go discharge his patient, but they kept an icy distance that night and only spoke when necessary.

The following evening however, four days after Harry had been sent back unconscious and invisible to the Burrow, (Severus had guessed at a place where he would wake up and know where he was when he came around) Jasmine had come into the hospital in high spirits, acting as though nothing had happened the previous day whatsoever. This suited Severus fine as he had learned by then that, as overwhelming as she could be at times, he much preferred her happy, usual attitude to her bad one. She had begun gaining confidence as she settled in and got accustomed to the ways of the hospital, became familiar and cordial with the other nurses. Severus had found this very tiring over the past few days.

She approached the desk at five o'clock that night, grinning ear to ear, her normally bushy ponytail pulled back neatly into a river of curls down her back, slightly damp and vaguely coconut-scented. Dr. Oakes looked up from his notes to watch her as she approached the nurses' station.

"Hey, Dr. O and Dr. P!" she greeted them brightly.

Both doctors immediately reacted.

Severus grumbled 'Oh my god,' while Dr. Oakes said 'Woahhhh' with a laugh, shaking his head and waving one hand across his neck in a slashing motion.

Jasmine looked startled and taken aback but was still grinning, confused by their reaction.

"Sorry!" she exclaimed, laughing awkwardly.

"No, it's fine. Other nurses have tried that with us before," Oakes began, clearing his throat and glancing sideways at his colleague. "I know that works with other doctors, like 'Dr. D' or 'Dr. B' or whatever but...I mean, 'Dr. O'...just sounds weird. And 'Dr. P' is too damn funny to say out loud." He broke again into laughter.

Severus' eyebrows arched as he finished signing his initials to a chart entry and looked up, immensely thankful that Sleeping potion had matured and he had finally gotten a full ten hours the night before. His eyes squinted slightly as he looked from Oakes to Jasmine, tapping his pen against the chart a few times.

" _Thank_ you, Dr. Oakes," he growled. "However, yes, as hilarious as it is, please use my full name in future."

Jasmine was trying so hard not to laugh; it was practically spilling out of her eyes. He stared back, daring her to do it, making it even more difficult for her to withstand by watching her while she struggled. After looking to Dr. Oakes, she managed not to laugh but attempted to stifle a grin and failed, her top teeth biting down on her bottom lip.

She nodded. "Absolutely, guys, no problem," she said in a very sweet, understanding voice, though Severus thought he caught a glimpse of an eye-roll as she turned to head back toward the nurses' lounge.

The rest of the shift passed quickly, the emergency room busier than it had been as of late, as early Halloween parties began to occur and resultant alcohol poisoning cases and car accidents became more frequent. Underage drinkers in costume aside, Jasmine had maintained her usual, cheery mood through the night and Severus had watched his tone, purposely keeping it in check with both patients and 'staff', in the singular sense. He had agreed to be civil with her but had deviated from that the day before to a fairly severe degree, to where he was a bit surprised that she had not confronted him about it. But then again, she may have understood that he was going through some things at the moment, since she had so easily honed in on his struggle a few nights before, after breaking his hand on Potter's face. She may have easily restrained herself from hitting him, but honestly, he wouldn't have blamed her if she did.

Finally, two o'clock rolled around, things were winding down and whatever energy he had felt earlier was waning rapidly. His tired eyes longed for darkness, his ears yearned for silence as he neared the end of his notes on his last chart of the night. The doctor coming to replace him as attending physician would be arriving soon, as Oakes had already gone home. Fortunately, there was not much for him to relay to Dr. McMann before he would be able to leave.

However, literally the moment his pen lifted from the paper at the end of his spiky 'MD', Jasmine emerged from an exam room nearby, down the hall directly ahead of the nurses' station. He glanced up but looked back down at the finished chart quickly, hoping she was not about to-

"Dr. Prince?"

His eyes slid closed. Patience. _Patience._

He looked up again, arching his eyebrows to indicate that he was listening, watching as she approached. His eyes flickered down to her hands as she rested them on the desk, bringing her fingers together to fiddle awkwardly with one of her fingernails. Curiosity flared to life. Jasmine was nervous? Interesting.

"Yes?" he prodded.

"I-was-wondering-if-you-had-a-second-if-you'd-help-me-with-something-really-quick?" She said this very fast and Severus frowned in confusion, shaking his head.

"Slow down and try again," he instructed, finally setting his pen down. "You're asking my help with what?"

Abruptly, Jasmine turned from the desk and walked back toward the exam room from which she had emerged a few moments ago. She motioned at the door, grinning sheepishly.

"Can you just come in here a sec?" she asked.

Severus' stomach did an odd double back-flip as he rose from the desk, still confused but now also slightly apprehensive as to what she could possibly need help with that required them to go into an exam room alone together. All of their active cases had been discharged, unless he was mistaken, and he had stopped taking new cases at 1:30am. This was a bit earlier than usual for him but he was trying to get out of the hospital _at_ two o'clock.

He was very tired, but it was a normal, typical sort of tired. Not the horrible, draining mental exhaustion he had faced recently. Despite how much he welcomed the usual fatigue from work alone, he was absolutely unwilling to help if it required anything longer than a few minutes of his time. It had been nearly a month that they had been working together and he still had no idea how Jasmine managed tohave so much energy left at two and four in the morning. Then again, she was quite a bit younger than him. Wasn't she? Wait...How old was she?

Random questions aside, Severus followed her into the room, passing her as she stayed to shut the door behind him and pull the curtain across it. He watched her do this, feeling slightly trapped and yet, looking around, he noticed that there were certain things set out on rolling, metal trays: gauze, instruments in sterile, sealed packs and a set of gloves, also sterile, unwrapped and exposed. He reached out to turn one of the instrument packs over; staple removal foreceps.

He shook his head, finally looking up, brow furrowed.

"I don't underst-"

His word caught in his throat, his guts clenching as though he had missed a step going downstairs. Jasmine had taken her hair down from the ponytail, the now dry mass of individually thick curls spilling around her heart-shaped face and over her shoulders. Her cheeks glowed and she seemed unable or unwilling to look at him, as she wrapped the elastic band that had contained her curls around two fingers and began to fidget with it.

Briefly, Severus had to wonder if he was perhaps dreaming. Had he fallen asleep at the desk? It would not have been the first time. Things were happening very fast and his weary, overtaxed brain was fumbling.

"I, um-..." she paused, motioning awkwardly at the supplies she had gathered. "I was wondering if you could take out some sutures for me? And a few staples?"

She had tried _so_ hard to make that question sound casual and while Severus appreciated the attempt, it had failed miserably. The heaviest silence fell over the room like a wet, velvet blanket. More perplexed than ever, without thinking, he let his gaze slide about her figure, looking at the exposed parts of her skin, her arms and neck, wondering if he had been oblivious to some other obvious thing about her. But no, he could not have missed a large gash that required both sutures and staples. This would mean that the wound was elsewhere, somewhere not immediately obvious; somewhere concealed.

For the first time in a very, very long time, Severus felt warmth rising in his own face and he turned away to look down at the supplies she had laid out. It seemed she had thought of everything and had of course retrieved his correct glove size; it had only taken her a few hours of her first shift to notice that he wore size nine. He felt it was safe to finally look up at her again and he shrugged, motioning to the supplies.

"Surely you could remove them yourself," he said, despite his new deep curiosity toward the location of her injury. Jasmine's hesitant, nervous expression hardened slightly as she moved toward him. She let a good, heavy beat of silence pass before she replied, clearly to emphasize how stupid she found his statement. The corners of her lips curled upward as she turned sideways to pass between him and the metal supply stands to the exam table.

"If they weren't in the back of my head, I probably would have already done that, Dr. Prince," Her voice was extremely heavy with forced patience. With a little hop and the aid of the heels of her hands, she slid up onto the exam table and sat there, watching, grinning as his curiosity intensified. He glared back at her but ignored her tone and stepped closer to her, toward the exam table on which she sat. Only then did he look away, to reach up for the switch on the surgical lamp over her head. It was blindingly bright and immediately warm. Severus took it with him, bending the extendable, bendable arm for the right angle as he rounded the edge of the table to see the back of Jasmine's head.

He did not yet have gloves on so he was careful to touch only her hair, but as his fingers parted the mass of curls, a short, shaved patch was made immediately obvious to him, in the middle of the back of her head, hidden in her voluminous curls. Severus felt extremely surprised that he had not noticed this either, but that did seem to be the trend at the moment; all sorts of discoveries he was making about the person he had been working with for almost a full month. But in his defense, the thing was very easily hidden by the thick, messy ponytail she sported daily.

In the very center of the patch of shaved blonde hair lay a deep, jagged, violent gash, several inches long, healed with the aid of the long row of sutures in her scalp and the occasional staple for what appeared to be deeper, but smaller healed wounds. Around this, within the patch of short, regrowing shaved hair, several less severe cuts had apparently healed over, but left scars as random, thin lines where her hair had failed to grow back completely. He abruptly released his hold on the hair and rounded the corner of the exam bed again, crossing to the sink in the far corner of the room.

As he moved, he noticed a slightly sick feeling had slipped down into his stomach. Not nausea, just a queasy, uneasy sensation. Jasmine's wound was serious. It had been sutured and stapled very well by whomever had done it, and he figured the resulting scar would be minimal with time and more healing. But what had happened to cause such an injury? To the back of her skull no less, one of the most precious and sensitive areas on a human's body.

Rinsing his hands, he took the chance.

"If you don't mind my asking-" he began offhandedly.

"I do."

Severus blinked, reaching out for the sterile towel Jasmine had already set out, silenced momentarily.

Sensitive subject. Noted.

Hands dry, he returned to the rolling stands and began applying the sterile gloves carefully. One of his eyebrows arched sharply as he glanced up at her with only his eyes.

"I was going to ask if you have children, Miss. Taylor," he lied with absurd ease, surprising even himself at how easily he played off his original question. "You're very good with them. I merely wondered if you had one of your own."

Jasmine's head cocked to the side like a confused puppy as she stared at him, as though he had just spoken a foreign language. A smile slowly crept onto her face but she shook her head, exhaling a breath of air she had perhaps been holding.

"Oh," She glanced over at the noise of ripping paper as Severus tore open the instrument packs. "Thanks! But no, I don't have any kids," she replied, swinging her legs a bit as she sat on the edge of the exam table. "I have a cat though! Well, I did...I had to leave her when I moved here," She paused, but when Severus looked up, she added, grinning from around several curls, "-from California."

"Hm,"

Curiosity momentarily satisfied, Severus moved to the back of the exam table, pulling the rolling stand with the instruments and gauze with him. Jasmine was the perfect height for him to stand comfortably, his arms at a natural angle. But she was still perched on the opposite edge of the table from him.

"Come back toward me, please," he requested patiently.

Jasmine gave a little start at the sound of his voice behind her but quickly scooted back across the width of the table toward him, bringing both legs up to cross them comfortably, Indian style. He noticed the back of her scrub top tighten across her shoulders then release slowly as she took a steadying breath. Was this why she had been so nervous? The pain?

He hesitated, lowering his hands from where he had been about to maneuver her curls out of his way. The thought had not even occurred to him that this might hurt her, that having four staples removed by manual force from her scalp might not exactly tickle. Getting a local anesthetic to numb the area would help of course, but it would take another decent chunk of his time. Severus glanced at the clock on the wall and, directly behind Jasmine, he rolled his eyes, dropping his head back, exasperated with himself.

"If you'd prefer, I could use lidocaine-"

"No," she shook her head and Severus' eyebrows arched in surprise. Really?

"No, it's fine. Just do it quick please." She placed both hands flat on either side of her on the table, to help maintain her posture.

"Which would you prefer, sutures first or staples first?" he asked. It was her body, she had enough medical knowledge to understand how much staples hurt in comparison to sutures. Therefore he felt she was entitled to a choice. With any other patient, he would have already begun long ago. Would likely have already been done. But the tiredness he had felt earlier was seemingly forgotten as he stood there, waiting for her answer, quite awake.

She shrugged, but he noticed her fingers curl inward into fists on the table on either side of her hips. "Staples, I guess. Just to get them out of the way."

This was exactly what he would have done and for that exact reason. Anything after the staples would feel like nothing in comparison. For a moment, Severus considered, _very lightly_ considered using a silent Charm to numb her scalp. But he figured she would find it odd and suspicious if he produced all four staples without her feeling a thing. So he had to hurt her. And oddly enough, he did not want to.

Gripping the metal scissor-shaped instrument specifically made for removing staples from flesh, Severus approached the bottom-most one, the staple closest to the base of her skull. With his other hand, he gripped the side of her neck, four fingers curling around the side while his thumb applied gentle pressure to the skin beneath the staple. He could feel her shaking through the muscles in her neck, her pulse was racing beneath the tip of his middle finger. Damnit.

Very quickly, he slipped the edge of the instrument beneath the staple and clamped down, bending the small metal staple in half, pulling the two sharp prongs from her scalp. His opposite thumb was quick to apply pressure to that spot to ease the pain but he had already heard the quiet whimper from beneath the heap of curls in her face. He shook his head at her stubbornness.

"I really can go get an anesthetic-"

"No," she repeated, shaking her head. The tiniest of sniffles was all she gave before her voice steadied again. "No, it actually didn't hurt that bad, I'm fine." The movement of her scrub top across her shoulders gave away her silent sob.

Moving to the next staple, he quickly repeated the process, but noticed that Jasmine did not flinch away from the pain, and yet she shook head to toe, her shoulders moving every so often with the effort of holding in an audible cry. He watched this, feeling worse by the moment as he wondered if perhaps the staples were not the painful part of this procedure for her. Staples were only a few layers of skin deep, but the pain behind their presence seemed to run all the way to the deepest part of her.

Her tears were not tears of physical pain, but rather grief. Severus hated that he could tell the difference.

After the last staple had been popped out of place, he set the instrument down on the rolling stand and exchanged it for gauze. He pressed it firmly but gently to the small puncture wounds, his heart beating rather hard for how little he had done.

"Are you alright?" he asked quietly, as gently as he could. One side of her face was visible to him but he did not look at her, feeling as though he did not know her well enough to see her tears. He already felt somewhat intrusive, almost ashamed or...guilty or something to that effect. He did not yet deserve to see her upset. She nodded, her entire head of curls moving with the motion, giving a watery laugh as she hastily wiped her cheeks with her hands.

"Yeah!" she answered in a very forced, bright tone. "Yeah, I'm good. Keep going. Suture next." Her hands met together with a clap and she took another deep breath.

The sutures were the easy part. Severus used the specially designed suture removal scissors to snip upward along each individual strand, cutting them apart to reveal the healed wound between them. He did this mindlessly, his thoughts again focused on what could have possibly done this, now that she had calmed down, her tears dry. Had she done something to injure herself? The wound was at the back of her head so it was very unlikely that she had struck herself with something but it certainly looked like someone else had.

"Jasmine," he began, hoping she would register his use of her first name. "It's absolutely none of my business, but-"

"You're right," she interrupted. "It's really not."

He continued as though he had not heard her.

"-what _happened_?"

A silence swelled in the room, so definite that Severus stopped cutting and looked up. Although he could not see her face at the moment, he could very clearly picture her calculating, hesitant expression in his mind's eye. Her shoulders slumped slightly as she folded her arms across her middle, beneath the ends of her curls.

"You're the doctor," she said simply, a razor's edge to her tone. "You tell me."

Scowling at the back of her head for her attitude, he looked at the placement of all the wounds as whole, all of the smaller and uneven, jagged little cuts, thrown into sharp relief against her skin by the sterile saline he was using to moisten the edges of the sutures.

"What were you hit with?" he finally asked, replacing the scissors with a pair of small hemostats to beginning pulling each suture through the skin and out of her life.

Her arms unfolded and her hands came to rest on either side of her on the bed again. Silence returned. A small motion on the bed drew his eyes and he glanced down at her left hand to notice her thumb move toward her fourth ringer. It was a subconscious movement, like something she had done out of habit for a while but had recently stopped.

Then he remembered; the tanline. Where a ring had once been. The sick feeling from earlier returned and he suddenly wished he had not asked.

"A bottle."

Severus swallowed, anger flaring up inside him unexpectedly. He gritted his back teeth together, pulling suture number eight from her skin and wiping it off of the hemostat into a piece of gauze in his left hand. He had no idea what to say. How he wished so desperately he had not asked.

"I'm sorr-"

" _Don't-"_ She interrupted him, her voice firm and unexpectedly cold. But she seemed to catch herself and turned her track without skipping a beat. "-don't be sorry. You're curious about everything." She gave another fake, nonchalant laugh.

Severus felt himself a bit impressed with how cleverly she had covered her reaction to his pity. He had not been apologizing at all for his curiosity and she knew that. He had been expressing his sympathy toward her situation, but she wanted none of it. She had likely been about to say ' _Don't feel sorry for me'_ but had caught herself in time. He recognized it.

He did not speak again until all the sutures had come out and he had gently cleaned the wounds individually with a sterile chlorhexidine and alcohol-soaked pad. As soon as he finished, before he could even set the gauze pad down, Jasmine had flipped all of her hair back over away from her face and hopped down from the table.

"Thanks!" she said brightly, and began grabbing handfuls of torn sterile wrappers and unused gauze, distinctly not looking at him. He was perfectly fine with that. Pulling the latex gloves from his hands, he left them on the rolling metal table with the rest of her lightly bloodied gauze pads for her to pick up in her sweep for biohazardous material. The silence was dense. Severus glanced at the clock on the wall as he crossed the room to the sink. 2:37AM.

Lovely.

Vaguely, under the sound of the running water, Severus heard the movement behind him stop. He still felt so unsettled, his weariness from earlier had returned, and he was unsure, at this time, how much more human interaction he could endure that night. But he could tell she was on the verge of speech.

Without turning around, he dried his hands with regular paper towels and dropped them into the trashcan on his way to the door, sliding back the curtain. If he could just get out of there.

"Dr. Prince," she eventually seemed to give in and actually called him by name, so that he had to stop halfway through the door and turn around. He slid it shut behind himself momentarily and leaned against it, his arm behind his back. His eyebrows arched as he finally made eye contact with her. _Yes?_

His stomach clenched. He had just spent the past half hour staring at the back of her head and had almost forgotten what she looked like.

Jasmine was hesitating. He was maintaining eye contact,

forcefully keeping his mind away from the possibility of slipping into hers.

"My-ex-fiance-kinda-had-"

As quickly as she had begun speaking, Severus had heard enough even quicker.

"I said it's none of my business," He spoke over her, his tone a bit firmer than he had intended but he did not attempt to smooth it.

He stared at her from behind cold, unreadable eyes, hoping she understood that he didn't _want_ to know more, he did not want the image of what had happened to her inside his mind every time he looked at her. She had been vague but Severus rather fancied himself intelligent enough to put the pieces together.

They merely looked at each other for a long moment before Jasmine smiled, the characteristic peace and calmness returning to its usual place among her features.

"Thank you," she said it again, in a gentle voice that suggested how deeply she meant it this time.

He nodded his head once and slid the door open to exit again.

"Goodnight."

For as little as he knew about her going into that room, he felt he knew far too much coming out of it.

After speaking with Dr. McMann briefly, Severus left without hesitation. Jasmine still had not emerged from the room and he had been hoping to be gone by the time she did. That sick, crushed sort of feeling lingered, followed him all the way through the locker rooms, into his normal clothes and into his car. Apparition was still as tempting as ever but he just was not ready. Not with Sinclair. Not yet.

Chills that had nothing to do with Magic or the ever dropping temperature slid up and down his back, coating his arms in raised bumps as he pulled backward out of the parking space. His back teeth met and locked tightly, and he pushed the car into gear with more force than was necessary.

God help the man who had cracked a bottle over that young woman's head.

Severus was not fond of cleaning up others' messes.

A/N: You guys are the BEST! Thank you so much for the sweet reviews! I can't tell you all how much I enjoyed writing the scene where Severus punches Harry. It was definitely one of my favorite parts so far! If you would like to, please leave a review. Was this chapter what you had expected? Any idea where we're going next? Thoughts, comments, questions? Reviews are amazing but I do not expect them at all = ) Thank you all so much for reading, I hope everyone is enjoying the story thus far!

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	9. Peer Review

Deepest, darkest purple had begun to lighten into pink, a faint glow of the most brilliant gold lining the horizon. A few clouds hung off in the distance, floating there in wisps, reflecting the colors around them. The immense expanse of dark water before the rocky outlook to which he had just Apparated glistened like diamonds in the emerging sunlight. If he held his breath, he could hear the distant crash of ocean on earth far below him.

Severus stood there for a long moment, in precisely the spot to which he had Apparated, breathing deeply, watching the strip of gold grow brighter. His vision was unfocused. His mind was completely blank. He had already spent the entire night first sitting on the couch, then in the bed, attempting and failing to sleep, then sitting outside for a cigarette, then into his lab...It had not been a good night. Sometime at around nine in the morning, he had given it up completely, grabbed his wand and a long, black coat.

And there he stood, exhausted but alive, his heart hammering inside his chest in excitement, the wand in his hand palpably vibrating, buzzing as it sensed his intention. He had come there with one purpose: Magic.

Turning from the dark Pacific ocean toward a beautiful sunrise, Severus was greeted by a vast expanse of grassy hills, a large meadow surrounded by a thick forest of Oak and Evergreen trees. He had been here before, many times, long ago, when he had first come to America, to practice Magic, keep his skills and mind sharp, vent some emotions when necessary. Jasmine's mention of California had brought it back to distinct memory. It was pure coincidence, but this very secluded rocky outcrop in northern California had been chosen at random years prior as his personal practice grounds, his private battlefield.

He had done the unthinkable in a drunken stupor one night years ago and attempted to Apparate with no destination in mind, only the idea of where he would like to go and what he would like to see. Miraculously, without Splinching himself clean in half, he had landed right there in one piece. And he had claimed it as his own. A massive Muggle Repelling Charm had been cast over the entire square mile surrounding him and was still in effect, even then.

Evidence of his previous visits and his worse tempers still marred the landscape. Time had caused the deep gouges he had made in the grassy earth to fill slightly and heal over like giant pockmarks in the otherwise smooth field. New grass and weeds sprouted there as though nothing had happened. Even the trees had regrown. He may have set quite a few of them on fire or broken them in half like matchsticks in previous visits...

A good stretch of time had elapsed since he had last been there. The longer he had been away from Britain and all of the constant reminders of pains long past, he found himself with less and less need for it. Yes, there had been phases where he had slipped back into what one could call 'depression', especially during those first two years when he had missed Hogwarts and the Wizarding world more than anything. But over time, he had learned to love his new life and things had been going generally well for him until only a week ago, when Harry Potter appeared in his emergency room. Shortly thereafter, the incident with Jasmine, learning what had happened to her, although he hated to admit it, had disturbed him more than he felt it should have. And both events only a few days apart from each other.

His newborn 'self-peace' was fragile, more easily breakable than the finest strand of hair. No one was allowed to so much as look at it. He felt the situation with Potter and the following odd and unsettling visit with Jasmine had been like tossing an infant into a an Olympic swimming pool and asking it to swim the five-hundred. Wasn't going to happen. He needed to process things, give himself an outlet to get it all out, get it off his mind, out of his heart, leave it all there, in his secret place on the other side of the country.

Long, untied black hair whipped about his face and shoulders as wind swept down from the low mountain above him, rippling the trees as it blew through them, their leaves rustling softly all around like a million whispers. His eyes slid shut, his mind blissfully blank. But instead of focusing on one spell in particular, he simply gave a wave of his wand; a test. The ground beneath his shoes trembled. The trees closest to him creaked. The skin beneath his coat rippled with chills.

The first strong rays of the sun had finally broken behind the mountain above him, casting him as a long shadow in the grass behind him. He stepped forward away from it, opening his eyes, raising his wand. It was time to play.

…...

After changing into the annoying, navy hospital uniform scrubs the following night, Severus left the locker room, figuring he would start his late shift with tea. It was his night to work until four in the morning but he had slept fantastically, so he decided to save the coffee for when midnight rolled around and his energy began to dip. Unless of course Jasmine decided he needed one sooner. The doctor's lounge was on the way to the front entrance of the emergency room so he decided to take the long way round.

As he walked, he passed a dark office, the clear window of which showed him a brief glimpse of his reflection. He glanced sideways at it as he passed, surprised with how different his posture was. It was an odd thing to notice, but earlier that evening, while shaving, he had wondered stupidly why he felt slightly, very slightly taller that day. His reflection explained it; he felt better. His back and shoulders were straight and upright, no slouching. Severus was not surprised. He had stayed in that field all day long, performing some of his deepest, most powerful Magic, until he simply could not continue any longer without passing out. It had been exhausting but had helped in more ways than he had predicted. Some of his newfound peace had returned to him, as fragile and delicate as ever, but present nonetheless.

But he felt the difference in his mood might be noticeable, so he dialed it back a bit before stepping into the doctor's lounge. The door swung open noisily and a short, blonde, bushy-haired nurse was revealed to him at the counter across the room. Severus froze in the doorway.

Shit.

As tempting as it was to turn hastily and leave before she could turn around, he figured this would be outright churlish of him since she had definitely heard someone enter. But the last time he had seen her, he had just removed staples and sutures from a very violent and emotional wound in the back of her head. It still bothered him but he had come to the conclusion that it was Jasmine's story, not his, and he had no business being upset by _her_ situation. He continued into the room as she looked over her shoulder, saw it was him and smiled, turning to face him.

"Hey!" she greeted brightly.

Like nothing had happened. Perfect.

Severus ignored her greeting but joined her at the counter. "Odd," he commented deeply, opening a cabinet to pull two tea bag packets from a box. "I could swear this room was the _doctors'_ lounge _..."_

Instead of the sarcastic comment he had been expecting in return, he glanced down beside him to find the peaks of her cheeks growing pink as she pried open the container of coffee grounds she had just pulled from another cabinet.

He cringed; please, _please_ don't bring it up, not now.

Fortunately, she grinned. His stomach unclenched. "Yeah, well, I'm kinda avoiding the nurses' lounge right now..." she replied with a nervous laugh. Confused, Severus placed his cup of water in the microwave and set it to run for one minute. He turned to face her, leaning one hip against the counter.

"And why is that?" he asked, folding his arms across his chest and immediately regretted it. Too casual.

Good mood, indeed. Jesus Christ, man, dial it back.

Jasmine absolutely would not look at him and was making this easier for herself by focusing very hard on retrieving a box of coffee filters on a shelf high above her. She was on the very tips of her toes, one hand bracing herself on the counter while she reached up with the other. Severus watched her for a moment, both amused and impatient; she was nowhere close. Exasperated with her her futile but stubborn effort, Severus reached up over her abruptly, pulling down the box and setting it in front of her on the counter.

She glanced up at him, a hint of surprise on her face until she finally cleared her throat, cheeks scarlet as she pulled a filter from inside the box.

"They've been calling me 'Princess'..." she admitted in a very delicate, cautious-sounding voice. "It's not a big deal though. Just a joke, probably because my name is Jasmine," She added this hastily, perhaps to emphasize the fact that she was not complaining about her co-workers.

Severus, however, was still confused. He frowned as the microwave beeped and he pulled the scalding hot cup of water carefully from within it. "That's a strange thing to call you," he commented, oblivious. "Why would they-"

He stopped mid-sentence as it clicked.

Oh.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jasmine must have noticed that he made the connection, as her eyebrows rose in a _'See?'_ sort of way. He remained impassive as he ripped open the packaging and uncoiled both tea bags to submerge them

"...Quite immature," he finally concluded a few moments later, having been totally staggered for what to say and feeling incredibly uncomfortable. To his surprise, Jasmine giggled, closing the lid of the coffee machine.

"Yes, quite," she replied in a very fake, distinguished voice that mimicked his own. Severus scowled down at her but she was already off to start her shift, still laughing quietly to herself as she left the lounge.

The beginning of the shift, from eight o'clock, went somewhat smoothly. Dr. Oakes had arrived late, in the midst of what appeared to be a very heated text message argument. He had scowled at his phone for nearly twenty minutes after clocking in and sitting down, typing furiously with both thumbs. Severus found this rather amusing. He had sent a total of two text messages in his entire life and one had been sent to the doctor beside him currently, only two words- "Fuck off". Oakes had texted him after a very long, taxing shift to ask if he would cover his rotation the following night as well. The text had been warranted.

Finally, it seemed the battle had either ended or been postponed until further notice as Oakes slammed his phone down on the desk and muted it. Severus was not sure what had happened there but he rather thought he heard the younger doctor swear ' _god damn women...'_ under his breath. He allowed himself a smirk as he turned to the computer to see what sort of state the emergency room was in currently.

Fortunately, and nearly without his noticing were it not for the costumes, Halloween had come and gone without major incident. It had all been the same sort of cases they saw every year: drunken car accidents, drunks with injuries, drunks who had drunk too much, drunks with makeup and costume mishaps, the usual Halloween crowd. The occasion had been one of his less spectacular nights, in relation to his temperament. But this had been before his visit to the rocky cliff in California.

Determined to start the night properly, he allowed Dr. Oakes to stay at the nurses' station to cool off while he tended to the first case of the shift. Jasmine, it seemed, had already decided he would be taking this one anyway; the initials 'JT' had been entered into the patient's computerized record. He approached the triage area, where the eighty-two year old woman had been wheeled in on a stretcher by the paramedics and placed in a curtained exam room. As he folded his stethoscope to fit in his back scrub pocket, he heard Jasmine's sweet, gentle 'patient voice' floating through the curtain.

"So you fell in the shower?" she asked, sympathy oozing out of her. He did not need to see her with his own eyes to picture the look of genuine concern on her face. "I'm so sorry, Ms. Adams. Are you in any pain right now?"

A shaky older woman's voice replied. "Well, it hurts a little less now but it's still very painful..."

There was a pause. Jasmine must have been jotting some notes. Still, he remained outside the curtain, listening. "I'm so sorry," she repeated sincerely. "I'll go get Dr. Prince right now and see if we can't get you some medication for the pain until he can do an exam."

"Dr. Prince..." the elderly woman repeated. "I've never heard of him. I hope he's nice. The paramedics were all so sweet..."

Severus' mildly interested expression fell flat. Great. There was no way he could take this case now; he would have to fetch Oakes. As he stood on the other side of the curtain, a bit of curiosity flickered to life as the curtain began to move out of the way, but stopped. Jasmine seemed to be stepping back into the room and was taking an awfully long time to answer. He could picture her biting her bottom lip, hesitant but bursting to say exactly what was in her mind. However, if there had been any trepidation in answering the patient's question, her voice did not betray it.

"Dr. Prince is really unique," she finally said, each word sounding as though she had taken great care in choosing it. "He's from England and he has a great accent! He's also the head of emergency at this hospital. But...I'll be honest with you, Ms. Adams, he's not exactly...friendly."

Directly on the other side of the curtain, Severus' eyebrows arched sharply. It was true, his accent was the most heavily obvious thing about him at first, but it never seemed to soften the way he spoke to the patients, nor the way they received his words. If anything, he felt his English voice sometimes may have sounded more condescending to American ears than he intended it to. She certainly had not lied about him. Jasmine continued and he was struck with an idea.

"But if you want an intelligent doctor, Dr. Prince is who you want," She laughed a bit nervously. "He might be a little rude but-"

He hastily combed his hair away from his face with his fingers, tucking some pieces behind his ears.

…...

Jasmine turned her head, startled as the curtain to the exam room opened and Dr. Prince stepped into the small space... _smiling_. She nearly fainted. His hair had been pulled back away from his face and neatened somewhat, exposing a sharp jawline, a natural arch to his eyebrows that most people went to great lengths to achieve, and those deeply interesting scars on his neck. She took a step out of the way, staring, shocked, as he passed her. He did not look at her but Jasmine could practically hear him thinking in her direction as he approached the bed, extending his right hand.

"My dear, I'm Dr. Prince," he began, his accent smoother, richer, more crisp than usual. Goosebumps erupted across both of her forearms; just when she thought she had been getting used to his voice. "I was so terribly sorry to read the report from the medics. I understand you slipped and fell in the shower?" His voice was overflowing with compassion.

Who in the fuck was this and where had her doctor gone?

Jasmine stared at the side of his face as he even went so far as to stand at the edge of the bed and clasp the elderly woman's wrinkled hand between his own. His smile was so warm, so gentle, his normally expressionless black eyes soft and caring. She had already noticed that Dr. Prince was attractive, in those rare moments when he was not scowling or glaring, when his features were relaxed or in the even rarer moments when she had caught him smirking. But however fake, the smile he wore now was downright handsome, natural. Jasmine could not help but stare at him until her eyes watered. One blink and it would disappear; she wanted to remember it for as long as she possibly could, certain she would never see it again. Maybe thinking back on it would make things a little easier when he gets snippy.

Of course, she also hated him a lot for making her look like a complete liar to Ms. Adams, who had glanced at her, confused. This doctor was clearly a total sweetheart who had never once reduced anyone to tears, nor would ever dare call a patient an idiot to their face. Jasmine stood there, silent, chart clutched against her chest as Ms. Adams looked up at Dr. Prince.

"In the shower, yes," Big tears welled up along her lower eyelids. "I feel so silly. But I'm scared I broke my hip."

He patted the back of her knobbly hand gently. "Ms. Adams, I assure you there's nothing to feel silly about. Accidents happen all the time," His smile became very charming as he pulled a tissue from a box on the computer stand and handed it to her. "And good thing too, otherwise I'd be out a job."

Ms. Adams giggled girlishly and fanned a hand at him while the other dried her tears with the tissue.

Jasmine's fingernails dug into the file with the effort it took not to roll her eyes. So he _had_ heard her. A little thrill of panic ran up her spine as she wondered whether he would angry about what she had said. It had been nothing untrue and she would defend herself if it came to it, but the fact that he had heard her actually say it was a big blow. Deep down, she _felt_ like she was in trouble. And yet she found it so incredibly irritating of him to come in and behave like this, just to make her look like a lying fool. And the patient was falling for it, hook line and sinker. As stoic, emotionless and unfriendly as he was, he played the role of a _normal_ doctor very well; it seemed he was quite the actor. She pulled a sticky note from the pocket of her scrubs and scribbled on it.

After Dr. Prince Charming had explained the situation to his patient, what the next steps would be, where she would be taken next, and promising to send Jasmine back with something for the pain, they left the exam room. The grin disappeared from his face completely the moment the curtain closed behind him. Like it had never happened. Unsure what to do, Jasmine forced herself to look up at him, nervousness bubbling in the pit of her stomach. At the moment, he was busy using one hand to shake the shorter pieces of his hair out from where he had pushed them back.

Jasmine decided to beat him to the punch, and took a deep breath. She needed to apologize before he rounded on her. "I hope you know I wasn't trying to...y'know, talk badly about you. I was just being honest with her. She seems so swee-"

…...

"Miss. Taylor," he interrupted, wrenching the chart from her white-knuckled grip. "You told an old woman the truth. I'm not angry so do _relax_ , please." The last bit had come out as more of a command than he had intended but he went with it, figuring the addition of the 'please' might help smooth it over. And it seemed to work as Jasmine grinned.

"Well played, Doc," she commented, clearly more at ease. "That was really slick."

Severus scoffed as he continued writing notes in Ms. Adams' chart. "Played what? You wouldn't really expect me to be rude to a sweet, old dear like Gladys, would you?" He saw Jasmine roll her eyes in his periphery and his smirk doubled. Yes, she had absolutely expected that. He signed a quick '- _SP, MD'_ and held the chart out to her.

She took it, smiling one of the fakest smiles he had ever seen on her face.

"Well, thank you _so_ much for making me look like a liar to our patient and also, you have a really great smile and should do it more often." She reached out one hand, using two fingers to press a sticky note firmly to the identification badge clipped to his scrub's chest pocket. And with that she was gone, off to the pharmacy to fetch the medication for Ms. Adams.

He glared after her for a moment, but then remembered the note on his badge, figuring he should probably read it before walking around the emergency room with it. He looked down and pulled it away. In neat black handwriting: _A. Hole, M.D._

A short snort of a laugh escaped him as he rolled his eyes, pocketing the note.

Surprisingly, the remainder of the shift went well. Severus had fetched his _own_ coffee for a change, when he had hit a slump in energy at around one in the morning. But nothing of great interest had occurred, no life or death cases; in other words, dull. Oakes had returned to the desk at random times, still very grumpy, only to look at his phone and slam it down before walking away again. He had left early at two o'clock.

Jasmine had caught up with her sticky notes by the time Severus read _'3:42am'_ on the computer. He watched her for a moment, as she carefully pushed the small, yellowish slips of paper into the noisy shredder. _Princess..._ what an idiotic joke. Abruptly, he reached out for the phone and his fingers dialed the code for 'page-all', _including_ the nurses' lounge.

"Attention, fellow _staff,_ I'm going through the drug log for this shift and I've found that there is an undocumented shortage of atropine," His voice echoed at the various nurses' stations and although he could not hear it, inside the nurses' lounge.

If these nurses didn't already hate him, they certainly would now.

"I'd like all of you to search the records of your cases from eight o'clock onward to find the discrepancy and report it to me at once."

He hung the phone up, fighting a very nasty, satisfied smirk. Beside him, in Oakes' chair, Jasmine looked over so quickly, she slapped herself in the face with the tip of her long ponytail. In spite of himself, Severus returned the glance to find a mildly panicked expression on her face, her eyes flickering down to the paper shredder. It had just chewed up her last note. His smirk doubled as the urge to laugh slipped past him. He nodded his head toward the back doors of the triage unit.

"You're free to leave, Miss. Taylor," he told her. "I'll be staying with the other nurses to fix the drug log."

A very long stretch of silence passed as Jasmine stared at him, eyes narrowed, squinted with suspicion. Severus stared right back at her, completely unreadable. But then she spoke, her expression unchanging.

"You're lying." She said this very bluntly. "About the shortage. You did the drug log for this shift like...ten minutes ago. If a dose of atropine had been missing, you'd already have it figured out."

Severus blinked, feeling very uncomfortable with her bizarre, unintentional compliment and also rather embarrassed that she had seen through his bullshit that easily. Was he losing his touch? Or was Jasmine simply getting to know him well enough to read him? Either scenario was a 'worst-case' sort of situation.

He shrugged, deciding spur of the moment to play it off. "I've no idea what you're talking about, but I did say you're free to go home, so...please do so," he said coolly, turning back to the desk to check through the charts he was preparing to transfer to the incoming doctor.

To his surprise, when he had fully expected her to needle him further for intentionally messing with the other nurses, Jasmine abruptly rose from the desk and stretched, yawning as she raised her arms high over her head. "Alright, well...yeah, I'll head out if you don't mind. Have a good night," she said, straightening out Oakes' chair unnecessarily.

Severus nodded his goodnight in lieu of a verbal one, eyebrows arching as he leaned back in the chair and picked up a random journal he had found on the back desk of the station. As Jasmine turned to walk away, toward the back doors of the triage unit, Severus looked up with only his eyes, watching idly as her curly ponytail rippled in her wake. He knew exactly what was hidden beneath there. However, before he could look away, force himself to forget about it, he noticed her approach the doors, then turn suddenly right, into the back nurses' station directly across the vast room from him. She picked up the phone. Severus put down the journal, scowling as she looked over at him.

"Hey, guys," Her soft, sweet voice came through the speaker of the phone in front of him on the desk. He could see her grin even from where he sat at least a hundred feet away. "I found the missing atropine dose. Dr. Prince forgot to enter it in the computer on our last case. Sorry for the confusion! Have a good night!"

With that, she hung up the phone, waved brightly at him from across the room, and disappeared through the back doors. He vaguely heard her loud laugh echoing in the distant hallway as the doors swung behind her.

The following evening was more of the same. Except for one thing: Severus had Apparated to work. He was not sure whether it had been a bout of laziness, foolhardiness or the fact that he had not seen Sinclair in almost two weeks that had given him the courage to do it. But he was scheduled at eight o'clock again, which was well past the time she usually went home from her normal nine to five, so he figured, with some hesitation, that the odds of being caught or seen specifically by her were slim.

Fortunately, the Apparition to the hospital had been successful, in that he had appeared in the upper most level of the stairwell of the mostly empty parking garage and made it inside, into his uniform scrubs, to the nurses' station without a hitch. In fact, Severus rather felt a bit of savage pleasure that he had done it. It was a small step toward using more Magic at the hospital again, now that he had judged the entity that was Linda Sinclair and deemed her a non-threat. Why she had given him such bad vibes at their first meeting, Severus was not entirely sure. The woman was honestly an airy, empty-headed authority figurehead and he simply did not have time or energy to worry about her.

As Severus followed Jasmine out into the hallway from their first exam of the night, she grinned, turning to him excitedly. "I'm assuming bloodwork? CBC, chemistry and comp?"

He nodded distractedly as she bounced along in his wake, writing his instructions into the woman's chart. "Yes, as well as toxicology and platelet smear, stained dry mount, please," he said this very plainly, and deep down, he had hoped to look up from his notes to find Jasmine staring at him in confusion. He sincerely wanted to catch her at something she did not know how to do.

Instead, she nodded confidently, taking the chart from him. "You got it," She replied. "I'll page you from diagnostics once I have the results and the stain ready."

Slightly caught off-guard, Severus merely nodded, but as they rounded the corner out of triage, they met a force so unexpected and overwhelming that both jumped in startled surprise. Jasmine even let out a tiny squeal.

Linda Sinclair was standing there, bold as brass, in the ugliest sweater he had ever seen, at nine o'clock at night, beaming ear to ear in a very unsettling way. His heart began hammering somewhere behind his Adam's apple.

"Ms...Sinclair!" Jasmine, it seemed, had recovered more quickly. "What are you doing here so late?" she asked slowly, her eyes widened.

The Chief Hospital Administrator laughed her characteristic bark of a laugh and motioned at Severus, who had hastily arranged his face with the most extreme look of indifference. Quite aside from having Apparated _that_ night in particular, even if he had driven and had nothing to worry about, he still would not have enjoyed seeing her. He hoped his expression was making that clear.

"Well, I can't ever seem to get a hold of this one to sit down and talk when I'm here during the day so-"

Yes, that would be because Severus had stopped coming in early _specifically_ to avoid seeing her, opting to work on his duties as emergency lead during his shift themselves. And it had worked for two whole weeks.

"-So I was passing by and thought I'd pop in!" She looked to Severus, a cold iciness behind her storm cloud gray eyes. "Do you have a few minutes to spare for a chat, Dr. Prince?"

His eyebrows arched sharply. A chat?

"Concerning what, may I ask?" he said sharply, noticing only then how much taller than Sinclair he was. She was only an inch or two taller than Jasmine, who was currently glowing scarlet next to his upper arm, looking as though she wanted nothing more than to sink through the floor and vanish.

"You did say we could schedule a time to discuss Jasmine, but I haven't been able to find you to 'schedule' (she air-quoted with her fingers. Severus was visited briefly by the desire to slap her hands out of the air) -that time. So I figured now would work perfectly!"

At this, Jasmine actually did walk away entirely, practically jogging in her effort to escape. He watched her go, then turned his dark gaze back to the administrator.

"Very well," he agreed. He might as well just get it over with, go tell Sinclair that Jasmine Taylor was suitable and had been doing fine and that would be the end of it. Quite honestly, he was just relieved to know the conversation was about Jasmine, and not about anything else. "My office is too far for me to be away from here, however-"

"Oh, that's okay!" Sinclair exclaimed. "Doctor's lounge it is!"

Fortunately, it was not far from where they stood. Other members of staff stared as they walked side by side and entered the room one after the other. Severus immediately sat at a table, resting his forearms on it, but Sinclair moved further into the room to the counter, to retrieve a cup of coffee. "Want one?" she asked brightly.

He rolled his eyes behind her back. "No."

'Thank you' not included.

There was a moment of silence.

"So how is Jasmine doing?" Sinclair asked, half-turned to him as she poured a heavy measure of sugar into her coffee. He watched her do this with a poorly disguised look of disgust on his face. Christ, how did the woman still have teeth in her head?

"Adequately," he replied, tearing his eyes away from her cup to look up at her. From the chill he found among her features, it seemed she found his answer unsatisfactory. He continued. "Ms. Sinclair, she has been working with me for longer than a month now. If I'd any complaint about her, it stands to reason that I would have already approached you with it."

Sinclair sighed, hanging her head in a dramatically exasperated sort of way as she sat down across from him. "Listen, Doc, let me get real with you for a sec-"

Severus could not stop himself from taking a deep breath and exhaling audibly, sliding his eyes closed for a moment. His patience was thinning.

"I _have_ to do Jasmine's review with you," she said, her voice suddenly missing the almost cartoonish, annoying note it usually carried. "You are her superior, technically, so the thirty day review has to come from you. Because I'm _your_ superior. I don't like this part of the job, especially since she's my niece. I have to stay impartial. So I need whatever you can give me."

Severus had been so busy not listening to her and simply staring at the bridge of her thick-framed glasses, he nearly missed what she said. He blinked, his stomach dropping. "I'm sorry," He shook his head, leaning back from the table to let his hands slide into his lap. He so hoped he had heard her incorrectly. "Jasmine is your niece?"

"Oh, did she not tell you?" Sinclair asked, laughing, clearly knowing that no, she had not told him.

He simply stared at her, a half-angry, half-amused, odd, mingled grin on his face. He felt like he had been hit by a brick.

"By blood?"

"Yep! My sister is her mom!" She laughed again. Severus shook his head, chuckling along with her. What a shame.

He was going to have to kill Jasmine.

…...

"I'm serious, Jaz-" Rebecca laughed, struggling to hold a pipette steady. "You need to get a recorder and just _ask._ I bet he'd do it if you asked him to. He's way nicer to you than-"

Jasmine had been about to cut her off to insist that no, he really wasn't, she was just better at putting up with it, when the sliding door to the diagnostics lab slid open on its track and the long, imposing form of Dr. Prince stood in the way. He did not look happy.

Rebecca had already set down her pipette and was taking off her gloves when he stepped into the room and said quietly, "Out." She was already way ahead of him on that.

Jasmine felt suddenly sick to her stomach and oddly trapped as he walked toward her, his expression unfathomable. She took a half-step backward and the small of her back made contact with the high counter.

In her mind, memories of hands wrapped painfully around her upper arms, shouting in her face all flashed randomly, quickly. She felt herself tense up, bracing for it. But he simply walked right past her, to the slips of paper on the counter, which he picked up and began to read, without saying a word, without so much as a glance at her. Stomach settling slightly, she turned to look up at him past the pieces of black hair in his face. One of his eyebrows twitched upward.

"Just had the _loveliest_ conversation with your aunt..." he began slowly, his deep voice crawling out of him, the lowest notes echoing in the tiled room.

Jasmine gasped, clapping her hands over her mouth, her eyes huge. This was the worst case scenario of her nightmares. This was the only thing he was not supposed to learn about her. It was enough that she had shared with him a part of her very recently and abruptly ended engagement, the reason she had moved there in the first place. She would have gladly told him the most intimate and gritty, shitty details of _that_ experience to keep him from knowing that his boss, the woman he so disliked, was her close relative.

"She told you?!" she squealed, hands still clasped over her mouth. She could not wait for an answer as he flipped back and forth between two slips of labwork paper. "Dr. Prince, I'm so sorry I didn't tell you. I was afraid you wouldn't trust...or y'know, nepotism or whatever..."

He suddenly looked up from the papers, eyes narrowed as he towered over her. "Yes, _nepotism or whatever,_ Miss. Taylor," he snapped, but did not continue. Instead, he moved to the microscope and leaned down, peering into the eye-pieces.

Jasmine followed him, fidgeting with the latex of her glove, stretching it away from her palm and allowing it to snap back. Over the past month or so, she felt she had been getting good at reading him, able to see at least vaguely past the mask he seemed to keep up all the time. Or at least she thought she had made _some_ progress in learning how to work with him. But for the life of her, at that moment, she could not tell if he was angry or not.

Before she could ask, his voice rumbled out of him again. "Shut up."

She blinked. "Excuse me?" she asked, feeling a little anger in her own gut flare up at his unexpected rudeness.

"I said shut up," Dr. Prince repeated himself, leaning away from the microscope only briefly to reach for a bottle of mineral oil. "You're thinking about apologizing again, which I don't need to hear, and also probably wondering if I'm angry, which I'm not." He paused. "At least, not currently."

Jasmine could not help but grin as he applied a drop of oil to the slide and scowled into it again, twirling the dial at the side.

"Well, I hope you can see why I didn't go around telling everyone that I'm related to _her,_ " she replied timidly, turning to lean her back against the counter while he took a seat on a rolling stool to continue reading the slide. She watched as only his dark eyes glanced up at her from the microscope.

"Which is why I'm not angry," His eyes returned to the microscope, but his forehead contracted into a frown. "Does explain a lot though," he added.

Jasmine laughed. "Like what?"

"Like why you're so fucking weird and annoying," he growled. "It's a genetic mutati-"

"Hey!" She swung a hand out to hit him lightly on the shoulder. As hard as she tried to sound offended, she was simply too relieved that he was not angry and was actually talking to her like normal people; she couldn't help but laugh.

Dr. Prince was once again lost in the microscope. She had not yet showed off her cytology and microscopy skills to him yet, so she wanted to watch, see if he might comment on either the skill or sloppiness of her slide. They had not had a case yet where Jasmine had been able to get a feel for how he liked in-house diagnostic tests to be run. Every doctor had their own preference.

But as she turned to lean against the counter again, she looked at his eyes, illuminated by the light of the microscope and her stomach flipped over. His eyes were the deepest, darkest, richest brown. She had already noticed this about him but she still tried not to miss opportunities to see their real color in direct light. Any other time, his eyes appeared completely black, like two bottomless chasms, but she knew otherwise. A mental image of his smile that she had captured the day before floated in the back of her mind.

She wondered, since they had been talking somewhat casually just a moment ago, if she dared ask him something she had wanted to know about him. The man was a walking enigma and she had been trying to find a time when he was vulnerable to ask him a personal question or two, get to know him better. Perhaps this might be the time.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Hm?"

Perfect. He wasn't listening. Sometimes she surprised him into proper answers when he wasn't listening.

"Where are you from?"

"Texas."

Jasmine's eyes found the ceiling as she turned away again to cross her arms over her chest. He must have noticed her do this as his own eyes rolled slightly from behind the eyepieces of the microscope.

"England, obviously," he corrected a moment later, his tone a little impatient. Jasmine recognized the impending end to the conversation and was quick to slide one more question in before he shut it down.

"I gathered that," she replied, then immediately wished she had chosen a less sarcastic-sounding way to phrase that. "I meant where in England?"

He seemed to hesitate on that answer for a moment, his eyes stopped scanning to fix on one spot. Jasmine held her breath. It was so sad that she was waiting on the edge of her proverbial seat, just to find out where the man was from. His eyes returned to scanning the slide.

"A small town you've never heard of called Cokeworth. Did you already read this slide?" He asked this without looking up, changing the subject with such rapidity that Jasmine jumped, nearly dizzied by it.

"Um..." She paused. Was she not supposed to have done that? "Yeah, I glanced at it," she replied, figuring she might as well be honest, since he had been admittedly somewhat kind about her relation to Sinclair...so far.

He looked up from the microscope at long last, brown eyes searching her blue ones. His eyebrows rose expectantly. "And? What were your findings?"

Jasmine outright stared at him. Was he really asking her? Was he just going to tell her the slide is garbage and she could not have found anything in her preliminary glance? His expression seemed as though he genuinely wanted to know, so trusting her gut, she answered boldly.

"I saw neutrophils, lymphocytes, some clumping of the red cells but no lysing, which is odd because-"

"Okay, calm down," He cut her off with a roll of his eyes. Jasmine frowned, but to her surprise, he continued, leaning on one elbow on the bench. "So, taking into account her clinical signs and blood values, which shows highly elevated white cell count, elevated enzymes ALP and ALT, and your findings on this slide, plus the history of hepatic cirrhosis..."

Jasmine chewed on her bottom lip, staring at a random spot on the floor. She could not believe that he was actually quizzing her. Why did she feel like she was taking an actual exam? Was this his test to assess whether Sinclair's niece was worthy of the job she had been given?

Suddenly, it clicked. She gasped, clapping her hands together in excitement. "She's septic!"

Dr. Prince leaned away from her with a small jump, a cringing expression on his face. But as she realized what she had said, what the diagnosis was, what he had already diagnosed himself, her smile fell, her heart sinking.

"But if she's septic-" she began frantically. "She needs antibiotics like STAT! Where is she-"

"She's already in the ICU on high dose ampicillin," he interrupted to inform her, rising from the stool. "She vomited bile while I was in with sweet Auntie Linda," He spared her a glare. "-and you were here. So I sent her off immediately."

Jasmine watched him pocket his stethoscope before gathering up the slips of bloodwork results, preparing to leave the room. Without any mental, internal warning, her question flew out of her mouth at his back before she could stop it.

"Was my review bad or good?!"

Dr. Prince did not stop on his way to the exit.

"Just ask your aunt," he replied. "Traitor."

Jasmine rolled her eyes, grinning as the door slid shut behind him.

A/N:

Thank you so much for reading! I'm so happy everyone is enjoying this story. And I say the exact same thing in every single one of these author's notes haha So I'll cut it short right here! As always, I would LOVE a review, but I certainly don't expect it, so leave one only if you want to! And of course, if you're shy, send me a message!

Thanks a ton, everybody!

-QoM


	10. Challenge Accepted

The first flurry of winter had arrived in Boston. Late November was a bit earlier than usual for it but he did not mind. Though it seemed he was the only one unbothered by it. Traffic had been more frantic lately, people had begun bundling heavier and heavier as the holiday season was now in full effect, but Severus simply noticed that the wind had been bitterly cold over the past few days, the skies churning, overcast and gray. He'd had a feeling snow would be coming sooner rather than later. Flu season would soon pick up; lovely.

Leaned back in his office chair, chin rested on his knuckles, Severus idly watched it float past the window, wondering faintly what Hogwarts was like on that very day, at that very moment, around two thousand miles away. It was imperative that he tread lightly on that topic. If he thought about it too hard, it made a distant part of his chest ache. To think that in a moment, in one breath, one blink, he could be striding up the high street to the wrought gates, topped with winged boars. He could walk into that castle right now, go straight to the dungeons, bodily remove whichever moron they had replaced him with as Potions Master, and resume as though nothing had happened.

He _could_ do all that.

And yet, he still did not want to. He had the same argument with himself every year around this time.

A week or so prior, Severus had 'overhead' a conversation between Oakes and Jasmine. He had spotted them across the triage unit talking quietly between themselves when he had returned from turning in his bi-weekly drug ledgers. And by 'overhead', he meant he focused his mind on a neat little Charm he had invented long ago, which brought their hushed voices right into his ears, muffled like that through headphones. He continued moving about casually, listening discreetly.

"I'm begging you," Oakes was saying. "Don't ask him. At least not while I'm here."

He was not watching them anymore, but could picture the confused, mildly frustrated expression on Jasmine's face. The frustrated look was something she had developed and reserved specifically for Dr. Oakes. Severus found it deeply attractive how much his sloppiness bothered her.

"Why not though? He can't spend Thanksgiving alo-"

"Jasmine, he's British. Thanksgiving isn't a thing over there,"

"So?! He's been here long enough. He shouldn't be alone working on Thanksgiving while everyone else is with their families."

Oakes groaned. "You don't understand. He _hates_ Thanksgiving. He gets really ranty and annoying about it...about how Americans are thieves who stole land from the natives and invaded their homes and we turned it into a national eating day and blah, blah, blah..."

There was a pause.

"Yeah, because...that's exactly what we did," Jasmine replied slowly, as though speaking to someone very dim.

The random male nurse walking past the station at the time had jumped, startled, as Severus let out a laugh at her response, while pretending to work on a chart. He'd had to fake a small coughing fit to play it off while the nurse continued on his way, looking alarmed.

In the present, several weeks later, he grunted a residual, appreciative chuckle. The more he worked with her, over the past near on two months, the more he had discovered that he found Jasmine very funny, and quite unintentionally so. Daily, he fought harder and harder not to laugh out loud at some of her comments and silly little things she did. Very recently, she had begun a series of small and innocuous pranks on Dr. Oakes.

Since she liked to sit in his rolling, hydraulic chair in his absence, she had casually begun leaving it at various, awkward heights when she got up, either practically on the ground, or so high that Dr. Oakes would have to jump up onto it in order to get it back down. She had also begun 'misplacing' his favorite black pens and leaving blue ones in their place, having learned at some point how much Oakes disliked blue ink. As head of emergency, Severus was completely unaware of this sort of behavior, naturally...

And she had the sense not to ask him about Thanksgiving, so that certainly spoke to her level of intelligence.

If he was being quite honest, Jasmine was a generally ideal person for him to work with. _Fun,_ one could call her. Yes, he had been initially annoyed to learn of her relation to Sinclair, whom he now considered his mortal enemy, but he understood that it was not any fault of Jasmine's. It was her aunt who had filled that position with her own kin and concealed it from him, and likely upper management as well. Jasmine had simply needed a job and help, for reasons he could only assume. She just so happened to have a generous aunt in a position of authority within her field.

A dry smirk that did not entirely reach his unfocused eyes tugged upward on the corner of his lips. He wondered if she had ever read the review he did with Sinclair. His smirk expanded a moment later, enough to show teeth, as he dropped his head against the high back of his chair. Somehow, he had a feeling that if she had, she most certainly would have given him her thoughts already.

He felt, overall, that he was getting to know her better- gradually, but better. At least, much better than when, early on, he had once forgotten her first name for almost an entire shift until someone finally said it in passing.

And if he had learned one thing at all about the nurse, he felt that were she a witch, she most definitely would have been a Hufflepuff. Without question.

Most importantly, in his opinion, he had been doing a damn good job of remaining civil with her. But Jasmine had been making it easy on him. It seemed that she had been learning how to read him all along, versus the possibility that he had been losing his proclivity to hide emotions. This was much to his relief but she was honestly getting rather good at it and he had not quite learned to like it yet. She had memorized the things that annoyed him the most, the things that made him angry, learned to recognize when it was time for him to cool off or when he needed to be left alone. But from the alternate perspective, she was also discovering the things he liked, the things that kept him at peace, how procedural he was with his treatment and consequent record-keeping, how he liked to keep a neat work space. She knew he liked to sit down and do his notes immediately after a case, if time permitted, and was careful not to interrupt him during these times. She had also learned that he took _two_ bags of tea per cup.

Whether or not he was conscious of doing it, Severus had been testing her as well, asking her to perform oftentimes useless but complicated laboratory tests. He felt it was common sense that any good diagnostician should be able to perform their own tests and read them accurately. He had begun asking her for preliminary findings on exams and X-rays as well, and had even asked her to perform an echo for him. While he watched, of course.

An idiotic grin suddenly broke his naturally stony expression and another deep grunt of a laugh escaped him as he remembered her expression when he had handed her the probe for the echo. She could have fainted. But she had done well, and he told her so afterward. Consequently, for his candor, he had earned an adrenaline-pumped puppy of a nurse that had bounced around him for the remainder of the shift, ' _totally stoked'_ that she had done her first echocardiogram. That night had been exhausting.

And yet, he still was not willing to risk Magic outright in front of her. No way in hell. Jasmine was extremely observant and annoyingly knowledgeable. He felt very strongly that any odd or inexplicable findings, any murmured incantation, any Charm, verbal or nonverbal, she would pick up and find immediately suspicious. And the fact that she was Sinclair's niece? No, he had not performed a single ounce of medical Magic inside the hospital since Jasmine had started with him, barring that which he had used at the appearance of Potter. But it was beginning to grow ever more tempting, and _that_ made him nervous.

When six o'clock finally rolled around, Severus stepped into the emergency room from a back hallway, not at all surprised to see the back of Jasmine's bushy ponytail already in motion as he approached the nurses' station. She was carrying a chart, frowning at it, but looked up and smiled brightly when she saw him.

This was another thing he had come to like about her. No matter how unapproachable he appeared at the time, she always seemed happy to see him.

Before she could greet him, he held up one hand as he sat down. "I need at least ten minutes before you hand me that chart," he stated, plugging his password into the computer.

Jasmine scoffed, her bright expression collapsing as she dropped onto Dr. Oakes' chair with a huff. Her hand sought the lever beneath the cushion and she began slowly sinking to the floor.

"This chart isn't even for you," she said defensively, clutching it to her chest. "Jeez, narcissist much?"

At this, Severus looked over at her from the computer, leaning one elbow on the armrest toward her. His eyebrow arched and he let a long moment of silence pass while Jasmine started turning colors. "That chart's for me though, isn't it..." he asked quietly.

She glared at him for a moment before abruptly flinging the floppy, thin, new patient file at him across the length of desk between them. "Yes, it is..."

Severus smirked, set the chart aside and returned to his perusal of the computerized state of the emergency room.

Quite suddenly, three nurses bustled straight past him at the station, over to where Jasmine sat. In unison, they cried, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

Without any thought to stop himself, he looked over in surprise, to find that Jasmine had flushed crimson and was laughing as they handed her a card.

…Okay, so...perhaps he had not learned as much about her as he'd thought.

He looked back to the computer, annoyed to feel slightly defeated, glancing at the time and date stamp at the top of the screen.

November twenty-eight.

Now he knew that. But how old-

"We're still going out tonight, right? It's your thirtieth! You have to come out for a 'dirty thirty' drink at least," asked the red-headed nurse, Rebecca, as though she had heard him wondering.

This time, a bit more braced for it, Severus did not look over, but felt another wave of surprise wash over him. Jasmine was _thirty?_ He wasn't sure why he had expected her to be younger than that. His feeling of vague guilt deepened a bit. Whyhad he not thought to learn these sort of trivial things about her? And why was the fact that he hadn't _bothering_ him so much?

At the other end of the desk, Jasmine seemed hesitant about the offer for drinks after work by the ever-growing mass of nurses, all of whom were attempting to convince her. This was another thing that had changed as of late; the other nurses were no longer afraid to be around him, as long as Jasmine was nearby. None of them said a word to him but they certainly had no problem speaking very loudly and laughing while he was attempting to work. Although, fortunately, Jasmine was typically quick to either lead them away or quiet them politely when he was close by. She was doing neither of these things presently.

At the moment, she was giggling and 'aww-ing' at the little messages they had written in her card and she stood up to hug and thank them. "You guys are so sweet! But I don't know about going out yet," she said uncertainly, glancing at the growing list of incoming ambulances on the computer screen. "We'll see how everyone feels at around one o'clock. If we all still want to go out, we will, deal?"

This answer seemed generally sufficient for the group of nurses, all of whom dispersed and walked away, including Jasmine, her cheeks glowing bright pink. In her absence, Severus exhaled a slow breath, resting his elbow on the desk to brace his forehead with one hand and close his eyes. There was no way he could avoid mentioning her birthday. He felt like such a fool for not having known and said it first thing, just to get it out of the way. Had he known and been able to prepare, he could have perhaps figured out a clever way to say it or write it...

Severus was struck hard with an idea. It was genius and yet so simple, he felt rather slow for not having thought of it immediately. It was the easiest way to both get out of saying it _and_ perhaps mess with her just a tiny bit. He pulled a stack of Jasmine's favorite sticky notes from within a drawer.

He had just dropped the stack of notes back into the drawer and slid one slip of the paper into the pocket of his neglected doctor's coat on the chair behind him when Jasmine's laugh preceded her around the corner from triage. She was clutching a stitch in her side with one hand and a chart with the other, doubled slightly.

"Dr. Pri-"

More laughter.

Severus could not help but smirk as she clutched the edge of the counter. Her laugh was incredibly infectious, the most ridiculous sounding thing. He shook his head, leaning forward as he managed his own laugh, purely at how funny he found hers.

"Are you alright?" he asked, thrilled that she had skated right over his lack of a comment on her birthday.

Jasmine stood up straight, nodding as she dabbed at the corner of one eye. "Yeah, I'm super!" she replied, finally covering her giggles with normal speech. She cleared her throat and took a deep breath, steeling herself.

"Dr. Prince, I have a seventeen year-old white male here..." She took another deep breath, her grin expanding. "He is here for heart palpitations, shortness of breath, feeling lightheaded..." she paused, her white, top teeth biting hard on her bottom lip as she looked over at him from reading the chart. "He thinks he's overdosing..."

Severus' eyes narrowed into slits as she dangled bait in front of him.

"On what..." he asked, already forming a vague idea of where this was headed.

Instead of confirming his theory, Jasmine shook her head, looking down at the chart in her hand reluctantly. "Y'know, I really shouldn't even give you this one. You'll be so mean-"

Severus rose from the chair quickly and moved to reach for the chart, but she held it up high over her head, even rising onto her toes as if to put it out of his reach...This only put the chart about a foot and a half above his face. He scoffed with a roll of his eyes at her ridiculous effort before tugging the chart out of her hand. Jasmine huffed, blowing a loose piece of curly hair out of her face, glaring up at him.

"That trick only works if you're tall, genius," he snapped in a growl, flipping open the chart, his gaze falling to her preliminary notes, where he found the word 'marijuana'.

"Excellent," he added silkily, slapping the chart shut, a nasty sneer on his face. Nobody could sober a stupid, stoned teenager faster than he could, no Magic nor medicine necessary. Jasmine broke into another fit of giggles while he reached for his doctor's coat and stethoscope.

As he walked, he applied both, glancing beside him as Jasmine kept stride. "I'm surprised you're letting me have this one," he remarked. "You're sure?"

She shrugged, but then nodded, glancing up at him and smirking at the sight of him in the doctor's coat.

It was purely for effect at the moment, but he may or may not have noticed that she liked it when he wore it.

"Yeah, I'm cool with it. He's really annoying and kept calling me 'babe', so..."

Severus shook his head, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. "Charming."

He could smell the patient well before they reached the opening to the small, curtained exam room. Severus paused just outside it, then reached out with no hesitation whatsoever, gripped both edges of the fabric and threw the curtains wide, sliding them back forcefully on their tracks with a loud 'SHING'. The lone, paranoid teenager was suddenly visible to the entire triage unit.

The blonde, fresh-faced young man jumped with a poorly stifled squeal, his heavy, red eyes widening. He made an odd, instinctual gesture as though to reach out and pull the curtains shut again around himself. Severus was to the bed in an instant, pressing the stethoscope into his ears and onto the boy's chest.

"Dear god _,_ man, you are _way_ too high right now," He announced rather loudly. Jasmine had to walk away entirely to keep from exploding with laughter.

After frightening the kid sober, then 'educating' (Jasmine would have called it 'berating') him a bit, he released him, annoyed that his time had been wasted, but entertained none the less. She caught up with him from a side hallway in the labyrinthine emergency room, smiling at the satisfied smirk on his face.

"What's the prognosis? Do you think he'll make it?" she asked playfully, skipping a step or two to catch up with his long legs.

Severus clasped his hands together behind his back, shaking his head with a grave shrug of his shoulders.

"Hard to say at this point," he answered, his smirk expanding, out of his control.

Oh, no.

He could feel it. Jasmine was going to start laughing again and then he wouldn't be able to resist. He already found the situation funny enough to begin with but the addition of her absurd laugh would be too much. In full awareness of this, he continued. "I asked him how many marijuanas he'd had and he said _four_ so-"

Then it happened. Jasmine doubled slightly in the middle of the bustling hallway and her silly laugh erupted out of her. And in spite of himself, he joined her, laughing and shaking his head as she clutched the crook of his elbow for support. He lamely patted her back as several other nurses walked past them, very judgy and disapproving sort of looks on their faces. After a few moments, she straightened up, flushed pink, wiping the corners of her eyes with the heels of her hands. She looked at him, searching his features for a moment, a pleasant, surprised sort of grin on her face.

Shit, she was about to say something.

Severus ignored this and casually headed off any possible comment she could have by tapping the chart and rearranging his own expression to look stern.

"-so it was very serious overdose case, Miss. Taylor," he continued, suddenly reproachful, his smirk lingering only in his eyes and in the vague lines in his skin beside them. "You really ought to act like it."

"Oh, of course, Dr. Prince, so sorry."

…...

Jasmine had not at all expected Dr. Prince to recognize her birthday, nor wish her a happy one. She had fully predicted that he would ignore it, treat her as normal, go about their shift in the usual way. So she had no reason to be disappointed. And yet, if she was being completely honest with herself, she kinda was.

Their first 'case' of the night had been a bit of an unintentional birthday 'gift', as it was not only hilariously funny, but had been enough to allow her to finally, _finally_ hear him laugh. And it had been worth waiting for. It was very like his voice, deep and rich, but silly and genuine; exactly the way a laugh should have been. She had heard him make noises before in lieu of an actual laugh, but what she had heard earlier made her feel warm and happy. She so wished he would do it more often.

But that case had also been helpful in smoothing over the moment when she returned to the nurses' station after Rebecca and the gang had ambushed her for her birthday, right in front of him. From the look of surprise she had noticed flicker past his face at first mention of it, she was entirely positive he had not known it was her birthday. But that was fine. Come to think of it, she did not know his either. She should probably find that out...

Jasmine felt she had been very clever in her attempts to learn things about him recently. Every now and again, when things were slow, or when he was deep in thought, she would ask him something personal, under the guise of a question related to work. She got a real-sounding answer out of him about seventy percent of the time. For instance, she had learned that he did not have a middle name by 'randomly' looking at his signed initials after he had handed her a chart.

"You always put 'S' and 'P'," she had commented, pointing at his sharp, crisp handwriting. "What's your middle name?"

Jasmine could remember how excited she felt when he did not turn to look at her suspiciously but instead answered conversationally, "I don't have one. My parents didn't have middle names either...A family thing, I suppose."

That was also how she had learned that his parents were no longer alive. This broke her heart for him but she never dared ask about them after that point. There had been a certain edge to his tone, very light, almost indistinguishable, but a note that said he preferred not to talk about family. Jasmine certainly understood and was careful not to venture too closely to the topic again. He had not asked a single question regarding her recent split from her fiance, nor had he told anyone else about her relation to Linda. She felt she ought to afford him the same courtesy by not prying.

Despite some days that were worse than others, Dr. Prince seemed to be warming to her a little bit more, day by day, showing her more things, asking her to do more, trusting her with more tasks. He had even begun asking her to do fluid and drug calculations for him. A few times, she had brought her calculations back, only for him to look at them briefly, comment that she had done her math wrong, then send her back to correct it. She supposed any other nurse would have found this impossibly frustrating, but a while ago, Jasmine had very specifically asked him to either teach her something or stay out of her way. It seemed he had opted to teach. And Jasmine could not object; she loved it.

One o'clock finally arrived and Rebecca, David, Kelly and a few others had found her in triage to discuss a post-work plan for celebrating her birthday. Dr. Oakes had been pulled in by Rebecca as well. Jasmine had still not decided whether or not she wanted to go but everyone else still seemed in good energy and were excited to finally get her out. So she agreed, under the condition that she was only having one or two at the most.

As she stood there listening, without any real suggestions on where to go since she was still new to the area, Jasmine glanced across the room to the distant nurses' station where Dr. Prince sat, head lowered, black hair hiding his eyes as he notated diligently on the case they had just finished. An idea came to her.

If she wanted to know so much about him, why not try a bit harder? Maybe, just maybe, she could get him out of the hospital, where they could talk about normal things, just be normal people in a bar. Now that she thought of it, she had never once seen him outside the hospital walls. It was also very unlikely that anyone had extended the invitation to him and the thought of that made her hurt in a way that was difficult to understand or explain.

"Guys, I'll be right back," she said to the group at large, though admittedly quiet enough that no one would notice if she slipped away.

…...

Severus could hear the faint squeak of tennis shoes approaching on linoleum floor, but he did not look up. He could guess with fair accuracy not only who it was but also why she was coming over, and he shut the file in which he had been writing, to interlock his hands and fingers atop it.

"So," Jasmine began the moment she had reached the opposite side of the nurses' station desk from him. She looked anxious, her well-groomed eyebrows doing that arching thing they did when she wanted to say something but was afraid of how he would react.

Severus watched her, his own eyebrows rising slowly in suspense until he eventually prompted, "May I help you?"

Jasmine blinked, bumping two fists awkwardly against the counter. "Um, so, it's my birthday so-" She paused, as though giving him the space to interject a loud, 'Oh my god, is it? Happy birthday!'

He did not.

She grinned at his silence and lack of reaction before she continued, more boldly it seemed, her voice level. "So a bunch of us are going out for drinks after we get off and..."

Severus braced for it.

"-I was hoping you'd come out too! Dr. Oakes is coming I think." She said this all very brightly, with a warm, sweet smile on her face, a bit of excited hopefulness sparkling behind her eyes. Severus stared up at her for several moments, thinking.

If he went, it would mean the absolute world to her. He also had this very, _very_ deep, bizarre gut feeling that he _should_ go...However, this also meant socializing, which was not one of his stronger suits.

He should go. There would be alcohol.

But he also had alcohol at home. Much better alcohol. Pre-paid alcohol.

Jasmine would be absolutely chuffed to pieces if he went.

But it wasn't just Jasmine going to be there, was it? It was a hundred other nurses _plus_ Mark, with whom Severus did _not_ drink well. The closest he had gotten to doing deliberate Magic in front of a Muggle and subsequently the closest he had been to Muggle law enforcement, he had been drinking with Dr. Mark Oakes. This experience was followed by the worst hangover he had ever encountered in his life.

 _But it would make her so happy..._

This entire conversation happened inside his mind within the time it took him to blink twice.

Jasmine's gaze flicked back and forth between his eyes, attempting to detect even the slightest hint of a desire to go in either one of them. But they were as clinical as always, unreadable and detached. The corners of them, however, wrinkled slightly in a smirk before he shook his head. She felt her stomach drop in disappointment.

"No, thank you," he replied, stowing his pen in the chest pocket of his scrubs and glancing at his watch. "But you're free to leave a bit early if you'd like." He added this without looking at her, straightening his already neat stack of charts, ready for transfer to the next attending physician.

Despite the disappointment gurgling in her guts, she smiled, giving a half-hearted shrug. Maybe he wasn't ready yet.

"Alright, Doc," she said sweetly. "Well, I hope you have a good night! See you Friday." And with that, she moved to turn away but his voice pulled her right back.

"Oh, one moment," He was thumbing through the stack of files in front of him, before finally extricating one thin chart from the pile. He held it out to her. "You were missing a note on Ms. Lexington's record. If you could see to that before leaving."

For what felt like the hundredth time that night, Jasmine's bubble of hope burst and it took a great deal of effort not to roll her eyes as she took the chart from him. Instead, she smiled with as much patience as she could manage.

"Sure thing,"

Fortunately, a call of her name from Rebecca across the mostly empty triage unit grabbed her attention.

"You ready to go?" the other nurse asked excitedly.

"Yeah!" she replied, crossing the room to them. She waved the chart, giving a shrug at Dr. Prince's last minute request. "I just have to put this in really quick. You guys go ahead, it'll only take a sec."

"Okay, hurry up!"

As the nurses walked away, chatting excitedly about this place Harvey's and their drink specials, Jasmine remained behind, standing in the middle of the triage unit as she opened the chart. It just figured that he would tell her she could leave early with the others, then hand her something that would likely take enough time to keep her there until-

The folder was completely empty inside, except for one yellowish, sticky note. One from her own collection. In spiky, slanted, black handwriting:

' _Have fun. Don't be_ _stupid_ _. Happy Birthday. -Dr. Pee'_

A smile slowly crept onto her face as she pulled the note out of the folder and stared at it. A snorted giggle caught her as she read the word 'pee' and she quickly looked up, over to the nurses' station where she had left him. His chair was empty.

Despite his abrupt departure, it still counted as a 'Happy birthday' from Dr. Prince in her books. So she pocketed the note and dropped the empty folder on the back station's desk as she left, still grinning to herself. Maybe a few cheap drinks at Harvey's wouldn't be so bad.

…...

With a loud groan into the empty apartment, Severus collapsed backward onto his couch, a warm fire already burning contentedly in the hearth across from him. The leather was cold against the bare skin of his back and coated him in goosebumps, which the heat of the fire rapidly cured. The wand held loosely in his left hand gave a twitch. The sound of a door opening down the hallway reached his ears, only a moment or two before a dark, paper-wrapped bottle of Ogden's finest Firewhisky and a glass tumbler came zooming around the corner. It was his last bottle so he drank from it sparingly. But that night, he was drinking to Jasmine's birthday. Special occasions and all that.

After the bottle had poured him a healthy measure, set itself down on the coffee table and he had taken a deep sip, he sighed, resting the cool glass on his bare chest, his eyes once again seeking the flames dancing in the fireplace. His vision slowly slid out of focus as his mind wandered.

He wondered, with mild curiosity, how drunk Jasmine would end up getting that night. It seemed American women treated each and every birthday as a tremendous milestone but he knew the age of thirty was particularly significant to the female sex. A moment later, his forehead furrowed, his vision refocused; she had better not get sloppy or end up in trouble. Not that he had any say in the matter, as he had declined her invitation.

She had come to him purposely, intentionally to invite him. He had looked up to see such anticipation on her face, so much hope in those giant blue eyes. Any ability to slip inside her mind was superfluous. She had genuinely wanted him to come out, and he had read that in her eyes just as clearly as if she had said it aloud. He hoped very deeply that she had understood the returned, nonverbal _'Not yet'_ in his hesitation. She had still been disappointed, but slapped her usual, sometimes infuriatingly calm smile onto her face. He hoped his note might make up for it a bit, and he wished now that he had stayed put long enough to see the real, _true,_ silly smile she would have developed at his use of the word 'Pee'.

Hufflepuff. Through and through.

And yet that very deep, bizarre, gut feeling lingered. He felt he should have gone, for reasons unbeknownst to him at the present. A large part of him felt as though that night at Harvey's was significant, as if something was happening at that moment and he was not there for it. Like he was _supposed_ to be there. It was a very odd, admittedly unsettling feeling. Vaguely, he wondered if perhaps-

A streak of silvery blue light suddenly illuminated the living room and kitchen as it zoomed in effortlessly through the glass of the closed patio doors. Severus was on his feet immediately, wand raised, his other hand slowly setting down the glass of precious whiskey. The hair on the back of his neck was on end, his arms and chest coated in goosebumps and yet...he felt warm inside. This thing was not there to harm him, that much was immediately clear.

And then the streak of light slowed, began to gain form, grew in size, sprouted a massive, twelve-point crown of horns and four long legs. The stag was enormous; the thing's head was nearly level with his shoulder.

Severus' eyes rolled to the top of his head, his wand arm dropped and he picked up the glass of whiskey again to drain it in one.

The Patronus spoke in Potter's adult, grown-up voice.

"Expect me in two minutes."

Completely unwilling to leave the apartment to escape the incoming intruder, Severus instead growled loudly in annoyance like a cranky toddler and stormed off to his bedroom to put on a shirt. He could have sworn there was a 'never return' policy in the agreement they had made nearly a month ago...

One month. That was how long Potter could make it without pestering him, barring the five years during which he had been 'in hiding'. The time was very near three o'clock in the morning, Severus was exhausted and all he had longed for was solitary confinement, silence and contemplation. He was allowed none of those things now, and after yanking a gray t-shirt out of a drawer and applying it, he returned to the living room, _very_ cross indeed.

As he stood there, in the middle of the room, he anticipated, _ideally,_ a knock at the door, or a broomstick idiotically in midair outside the window, perhaps even a clever, surprising slip around the Anti-Apparition Charms he had cast over his apartment.

What he had _not_ expected, however, was for the fire in his grate to suddenly glow violent green and swell to giant flames. The tall form of Harry Potter became visible clambering through, crouching low to squeeze through the small, Muggle fireplace while Severus stared, gaped at his idiocy. A load of ash and soot came with him, and by use of his filthy hands on the clean, white mantle, he pulled himself up, grinning.

Severus was not at all concerned about the hand prints on the wall, nor the gray and black ash all over his living room floor at the moment. He was on his feet again, anger and mild panic flaring.

"You are, without doubt, the _stupidest_ boy I have ever encountered," he snarled, pointing at the grate. "Did you happen to forget that you work for the Ministry? _Where they monitor the FLOO Network?"_

Potter grinned, jabbing a dirty thumb at the now 'normal' but smudged and filthy fireplace behind him. "Well, yeh, but not my home floo," he answered patiently, a touch of self-satisfaction in his voice. "I had a friend take it off the Network for me."

Severus scoffed with a heavy roll of his eyes. "Oh, of course, King Potter..." he growled, though internally, he felt relief wash over him. His heart rate began to return to normal and his brain relaxed a bit. He gave a nod of his head toward the filthy, finger-smudged walls and resumed his place on the couch, to pour himself another, taller glass from the bottle of Ogden's. "Get that shit off my walls and floor, _Your Highness."_

As Potter began using his wand to vacuum away the soot on the floor, he frowned, pointing at the bottle Severus had just set down on the coffee table. "So you get all over me about the bloody Floo Network and there you're still buying Firewhisky?" he asked hotly.

Severus leaned forward. Potter leaned back; not a flinch, but rather a slow retreat from within arm's distance. He fought a nasty smirk with difficulty. It appeared that his nose and the accompanying bruises had healed well.

Pity.

"I bought an extra bottle whenever I ordered it," He was unsure why he had explained it but there it was. He continued in a dry rumble of a voice as his vocal cords began to give up on him. "And this is the last one, so whatever reason you're here-" He paused to snap his fingers lazily a few times, already feeling a bit of the strong whiskey taking effect. "-let's make it quick. We -aven't got all night."

The wall and floor had returned to roughly the same state in which they had been before his arrival, and satisfied with his work, Potter sat down in the arm chair facing sideways to the couch.

"I can see you're a busy man so I'll cut to the chase," he commented sarcastically at the lazy slouch in which his former professor was sitting. He smirked in a very 'James' sort of way that made Severus' blood boil. "I want to duel you."

At first, so thrown by this unexpected statement, he merely blinked, one eyebrow slowly rising into a sharp arch. "You what?" he asked, hopeful that he had heard him correctly.

Harry's mirror impression of his father's shit-eating grin was more pronounced than ever as he leaned forward in the armchair.

"I, Harry Potter, challenge you, Severus _Snape_..." He emphasized the name and paused to let that sink in. Severus' eyes narrowed. "-to a duel."

A/N:

AHHHHHH! YES! FINALLY! Getting into some really fun stuff here soon! I've been excited to write this next chapter since I even had the idea for the story! So stay tuned!

Also, as I mentioned in the very first 'chapter' of this story, in the big author's note, I am in veterinary medical school to be a CVT, and school resumes on Monday (Aug 13) so PLEASE bear with me if the chapters come out a bit less frequently (by less frequently, I mean, like a few extra days in between, not months or anything crazy)

I AM ABSOLUTELY CONTINUING THIS STORY.

I'M TOTALLY IN LOVE WITH IT.

So leave me some love or hate in that review box, but only if you want to! I hope everyone enjoyed this one!

-QoM


	11. Unleashed

A/N: I usually put these at the end but I wanted to give a heads up- This chapter has a playlist! I found some awesome songs that helped me get in the mood to write it and some of the flow of the duel aligns with the music. So if you're interested, here they are, in order, from the point where it says _CRACK,_ after the 'page break'. ** **I do not own this music, it just helps me write. It belongs to the artists****

Extra Dimensional – Danny Cocke

Rex Inferos – Erik Ekholm

No Honor In Blood- Two Steps from Hell, Thomas Bergersen

Magika- Thomas Bergersen

Just put these on and it makes the whole chapter way cooler!

…...

The heaviest silence filled the apartment, as though the entire building was swelling like a great, tense balloon. Severus' heart had leaped at Potter's words, but he hesitated, leaning forward to set the remainder of his unfinished drink on the coffee table. His elbows met his knees, his hands linked between them and he looked over at the son of his former, _predeceased_ arch nemesis. Black eyes sought the green ones and narrowed.

"I don't think you fully understand how terrible an idea that is," he stated plainly, slowly.

Harry shrugged in a very nonchalant sort of way for someone who had just signed their death note.

"Maybe, maybe not," he replied, leaning back in the chair to cross his arms. "I'm not a exactly a kid anymore, y'know," he added, despite both the childish statement and posture he currently held.

Severus stared at him for a long moment, memories of years past flashing in his mind's eye; a bloodied James Potter, a screaming Sirius Black, a stand-aside, relatively unharmed Remus Lupin and a wormy piece of shit, Peter Pettigrew, who had actually broken down into tears.

He took a quick breath before speaking. "Your father was my own age, Potter, and as I've explained before, he couldn't handle me without his band of imbiciles-"

"I'm _not_ my father." Harry interrupted him firmly, the round lenses flashing in the reflections of the fire on his glasses. He seemed suddenly annoyed but Severus ignored this and allowed silence to descend once again, his mind churning.

Damn, he wished he hadn't drunk as much as he had. He had this sneaking suspicion that if he agreed to this now, things would go very poorly indeed. That, and quite aside from any alcohol, he was absolutely exhausted. If he was going to duel Harry Potter, he wanted to _destroy_ Harry Potter. Great wizard though he admittedly was, his reflexes were notably slower under the influence and that simply would not do for this sort of occasion.

He finally gave a nod of his head. "Accepted," he said deeply, but continued hastily as a grin began to spread across Potter's face. "But not tonight-" The grin suddenly disappeared and he tossed his arms impatiently, opening his mouth to protest. Severs did not allow him to interrupt.

"Tomorrow night, seven o'clock..." He gave a flick of his wand and a random slip of paper on his cluttered dining table zoomed toward him before coming to rest on the coffee table. He passed his hand slowly over the piece of paper...which did nothing.

Harry stared at it, confused, mouth open, in a way so reminiscent of his stupefied expression in Potions lessons of years past that Severus nearly laughed aloud. Instead, he flung the slip of paper at him, which fluttered a bit before he caught it, still baffled by the blank, apparently useless paper.

"The coordinates will appear on that slip tomorrow at seven," he explained with a heavy roll of his eyes, allowing his back to relax and he sank into the cushions of his couch again, taking up his unfinished glass once more. He took a long sip, absentmindedly tracing the patterns in the handle of his wand.

Reluctantly though it seemed, Harry finally nodded, folded the paper in half then stowed it carefully in a zipped chest pocket on his jacket. Severus watched him do this before speaking again, pointing at him with one finger, the other four grasping his glass.

"Set the conditions," he instructed.

It seemed that this question baffled the former Chosen One, as he cocked his head to the side and blinked; exactly like a dumb dog. Severus rolled his eyes with a groan.

"You've got to set some _rules,_ Potter, or I might end up killing you,"

Harry laughed.

Severus was not joking.

This became apparent to him only when he made no indication of humor whatsoever and continued to glare at him seriously from beneath heavy eyelids. Potter's laugh morphed into a cough and he cleared his throat, nodding.

"Well, yeah, right," he said, his voice a bit clearer, louder as he adjusted the bridge of his glasses. "Er- no killing me- either of us. No killing. Rule number one."

 _Now_ Severus had to fight a smirk. Was it just him, or did he suddenly seem a bit nervous?

Good.

He should be.

"No Unforgivables," Potter continued, giving him a pointed look as he ticked a second finger. Severus scowled but nodded his head once in acceptance.

"Fine," he agreed. A moment later, a nasty sneer formed on his face. "No Invisibility Cloak."

Harry hesitated and Severus watched his eyes closely, curiously looking for any giveaway as to where the Cloak was hidden on his person at that moment. He was so thankful he had thought to mention it, as the Cloak was what set Harry Potter apart from other foes. Severus could detect Invisible enemies by his own means and they could still be hit with spells and curses. Under the Cloak, Harry could not. Unfair advantage.

Finally, the younger wizard gave a stiff nod. "Fine, but no _flying_ either," he said in a bit of a drawl, again casting a very judgmental sort of look in his direction. Severus moved to take another sip of the whiskey, giving a quiet scoff that echoed in the bottom of the glass.

"Believe me, Potter,"

He paused, decided to drink the remainder in one then set the tumbler upside down on the coffee table with a heavy thud. A sticky ring of residual whiskey formed around the rim on the wooden surface.

"My ability to fly ought to be the very least of your concerns now."

…...

 _CRACK_

Severus was standing on a rocky cliff, his pupils dazzled by the setting sun, blinding him momentarily so that he had to look away and close his eyes. His black hair was loose from its usual place at the back of his neck and caught a gust of bitterly cold wind, whipping against the side of his face and neck as he turned his head. The air was active that night, tingling with tension and energy as the snow-capped mountain drafted gusts down from her peak.

He would be there soon.

The note he had handed Potter would burn acid green with the coordinates to this location, to _his_ personal battlefield, his new home territory. The paper would give him only one minute to read, memorize and Apparate before it would begin to dissolve into an acidic goo. Honestly, he would be surprised if Potter made it there at all. But this was his test, his proof that he could live away from the Wizarding World, live among the Muggles and still hold his rank as one of the most powerful wizards on the planet. He bristled as he thought it, but he really hoped Potter would show up.

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end and he gave a bodily shiver as he finally opened his eyes to stare out over the Pacific ocean. Waves far below him crashed violently against stone, catching the same gusts from the mountain. The smell of salt was heavy on the air, along with the earthy scent of Evergreen and Oak. He took a deep breath in, clearing his lungs and blood of all the poison he breathed in the city, exchanging it for pure, untamed air.

There was no other word for it; _Magic_ was coursing throughout him, his senses heightened. His mind was oddly blank, quiet, steady.

His hands were not shaking. They never had and likely never would.

He turned fully toward the mountain, the sun setting behind him, just as another, more distant _CRACK_ rent the air and echoed faintly through the peaks beyond the field. Harry Potter steadied himself from the Apparition and was quickly taking in his surroundings as Severus continued in his direction, conscious of every footstep. He was at least a hundred yards away but he could see very clearly the exact moment when his opponent caught sight of his long silhouette in the orange and red, fiery glow along the horizon behind him. Potter stiffened, his feet planted, shoulders squared.

Harry could also likely see the gradual change in Severus' clothing as he approached.

His hooded jacket and outer, pewter gray coat morphed smoothly into solid, black material. A familiar, soft white shirt materialized against his chest, his coat and jacket sleeves slimming and tightening against his forearms, lengthening slightly. With another gust of wind, he felt a collar brush against his jaw. The jeans he was wearing softened and hugged his legs a bit more closely. His stride lengthened as the rest of Severus Snape Transfigured into place, the black tunic even slimming a bit extra at the waist to fit his leaner frame. A gentle weight settled upon his shoulders and he felt a long length of black material catch the wind behind him. The cloak gave a familiar, quiet crack as it rippled.

His heart soared, his veins pounded beneath his skin.

That challenge _had_ been for Severus Snape, had it not?

The nearer he drew, the taller Potter attempted to make himself, his wand held loosely at his side, at ease, though he shifted it between his hands once in anticipation. Severus watched from behind mental steel doors as he approached, his eyes glancing upward to the mountain above them. A moon would emerge from behind it soon. He closed his eyes for a few strides, his lips moving silently. His entire body pulsated with it, his heart hammering inside his chest.

Vaguely, he heard Potter's voice like that through an old radio-

"So who goes first?" He had shouted it from a distance of around fifty yards.

Slowly, Severus' empty hands moved out to either side of his body, his arms raising slightly, ready for it. It would come any moment...

"...Snape?"

The voice came again, uncertain this time. Anxious. A smirk formed on Severus' face, his eyes still closed.

 _En Tame Venti..._

Another frigid gust of wind swept down from the mountain but was drawn into Severus' waiting hands, without even so much as a rustle of a leaf. He held it clasped in his fingers tightly; it vibrated and swirled within his grip and took all of his strength to contain.

He then threw wide his arms and hands, releasing the full power of the wind.

It was like a category five hurricane had struck instantly. The giant, sturdy trees behind Harry Potter flattened like trodden grass, their leaves exploding from the branches, deep roots ripping up from the earth, which trembled and rolled beneath them. Even the distant boulders and rocks seemed to groan and grumble where they lay at the foot of the mountain. Severus watched with savage pleasure as Potter was knocked hard from his feet onto his chest, where he lay momentarily face-down, panting for air. The blow had taken the breath out of him. As intended.

Severus was finally within speaking distance and stepped past his downed opponent, who had rolled onto his back with a raspy grunt, massaging his sternum. The black cloak made the most satisfying slithering noise as it trailed behind him through the now patchy, frosty grass and the exposed dirt his recent attack had ripped up.

"First move always goes to the senior of the two wizards, Potter,'' he spat, withdrawing his wand from his black sleeve at last. "On your feet. Be thankful I'm even giving you this-"

But Potter had not risen to his feet. Under the guise of turning to push himself up, he shot a neat jinx from around his side, beneath his arm. And he would not have missed, had Severus not immediately Shielded himself from it. The jinx exploded against the force in front of his face and dripped against the invisible barrier like lava, burning spots of the Shield away entirely. He hastily Vanished it but Potter was already on his feet, wand raised.

"Wow, nonverbal and everything," Severus mocked, raising his own wand. "Daddy would be so impressed. What a shame-"

Another jinx.

Having provoked the attack and prepared for it, he caught the spell like a magnet at the end of his wand, flicked his wrist and fired Potter's own jinx back at him. It exploded against a Shield of his own but the younger wizard, his former student, was already trotting backward while the elder closed in.

Severus followed pursued, allowing only his lips to move and he whipped a curse from his wand with such force that his hand went momentarily numb. There was an explosion, the dark earth thrown into the air by an invisible force, like that of a Muggle land mine. Though the sunlight was fading rapidly, he could see a form running away from the massive new hole in the ground, crouched, one arm drawn back. He was moving in a circle around him and Severus did not like it. He held his arm out straight, lining up his sight with the tip of his wand to follow Potter's form in the darkness, both eyes open.

Another curse fired, gouging yet another hole in the earth, another explosion of deep stones, dirt and grass. This one had surely hit him.

But as the cloud of dust, dirt and rocks were propelled upward, he noticed a spiral begin to take shape, the cloud high above circling in on itself, the vacuum drawing the debris from the explosion inward. With a scowl, Severus took aim at the rapidly forming tornado as Potter emerged from the cloud of dust, scratched and bleeding, but his wand raised toward the sky, every ounce of his focus channeled there.

Stupid boy. Had he not just proved he could control the wind?

 _En Tame Venti_

It began at the bottom, but slowly, the direction of the spiraling, forming tornado reversed, sending rocks and earthy debris flying like shrapnel. Severus was circling opposite Potter, eyes transfixed upward. His wand vibrated in his hand like that of car brakes when applied too quickly; it did not like what he was asking it to do but he urged it on, feeling the strain in his upper arm.

Suddenly, instantly, the hair that had all blown to one side of his head in the high wind, the cloak that had been tugging him steadily to the right, everything the wind could move, was now blowing in the opposite direction. The heavy cloak blew to his left and caught enough wind to destabilize him, had he not felt the shift coming and leaned into the gust. He felt the resistance from his wand weaken a bit as Potter either gave up the fight for control or had been knocked off his feet by the abrupt change in wind direction.

The beaten landscape lay covered in darkness as night fell, the final rays of the sun dissipated, but the growing tornado above them was ever churning. The glow of the rising moon silhouetted its size; it was absolutely monstrous. The wind sustaining it roared like a train as it spun there in the middle of the field under sole control of Severus' wand, momentarily stationary. Potter had dropped his own wand slightly and was staring up at it in open-mouthed awe, but only for a moment before he began to run.

Severus watched him flee with venom and pleasure surging in his veins, directing the tornado ahead of him to pursue its prey. As Harry ran, he gave a wave of his entire arm, wand included. At first, it was unclear what he had done, but only a moment later, the tornado hit a giant, invisible barrier, just tall and strong enough to break it apart and scramble the formation so thoroughly that it could not regather.

Severus strode further into the field, giving an annoyed swipe of his wand, which cleared the air instantly of all the dirt and debris now raining lightly down from the destroyed tornado. The rubble zoomed to the ground over Harry as though drawn by magnetic force, the rocks and heavier material landing hard enough that Severus could hear it thudding, beating divots into the earth even from where he was, a few leagues away.

Potter crouched quickly to cover his head but rose again after only a second, into a standing position, square at the shoulders, both hands gripping the wand out in front of him. Oddly, Severus felt a jolt of panic; he recognized that stance and it froze him. Then a tremendous bang, followed very shortly by a sudden, sharp, hot pain in his upper right arm.

He hissed, his hasty Shield Charm only partially adequate, but gave him enough time to glance at his arm. The black material had torn across his bicep, exposing the equally ripped white shirt beneath it, the edges of which began to rapidly stain red with his blood. The gash was surprisingly deep and throbbed angrily in time with his racing heart.

"Honestly, Potter! A _bullet?"_ Severus asked loudly from a distance, only to receive an echoing laugh in return.

Bristling, Severus extended his left arm straight out to hold his hand thumb-up in front of him. His right arm bearing the wand drew back, and between the space, a thick, black arrow materialized. The razor sharp point glinted malevolently in the glow of the rising moon. He pulled back further on the invisible bow as Potter began running again, moving his aim to follow his prey in the dark.

The younger wizard may have drawn blood first, but that was before Severus realized they were actually aiming to harm each other. If Harry was willing to take it to that level, Severus would be more than happy to match. And he'd be damned if he couldn't sink at least one of these massive arrows to repay him for the grazed bullet wound along his arm. Just the thought of it incensed him; a _bullet_ at a Wizarding duel. It was insulting.

Taking careful aim at Potter's dark, moving figure, Severus let fly the arrow and it whistled away from him as fast as the bullet had left Potter's wand. A faint trail of gray smoke followed it but was swept away immediately by the wind, only a moment before a dull thud echoed across the field as the arrow made contact with the trunk of a tree. Potter looked back at the noise and slowed for a moment, watching as the tip of the arrow ignited and began to glow bright with flames, burning rapidly from the inside of the tree, outward. Within a few moments of being struck, the tree was completely engulfed.

Severus' eyes found the gleam of Potter's glasses in the light of the tree turned giant torch, a nasty snarl of a grin forming on his face when he saw the panic on his opponent's. He pulled back again on the invisible bow and another glistening, black arrow appeared.

Harry turned to throw himself into an all out sprint; Severus took one step forward, taking aim once again.

He fired.

The arrow zoomed away from him, another trail of smoke lingering momentarily, before a loud shout rent the air, followed by a heavy thud.

Lowering his hands, Severus approached briskly, wand at the ready, until he had come close enough to see Potter reach back and with an almighty yell, hastily rip the arrow from within the back of his upper leg, removing the combustible tip before it could burst into flame inside his muscles. With another shout of pain or anger, Severus was unsure, he flung the arrow away from himself to sizzle harmlessly in the damp grass before attempting to resume his standing position.

Severus struck again. His wand arm moved in a manner consistent with the cracking of a whip, and Harry let out another grunt of pain as an invisible force slashed him in the face. A deep gash appeared above his eyebrow and began to bleed freely behind his round glasses.

With a shrug, Severus motioned at his wounded opponent, sneering down at his nose at him as he continued his attempts to rise. "Is that it then?" he taunted. "Is that all it takes to defeat the great Harry Potter?"

Potter's entire body gave an odd warble in Severus' vision as he attempted to Apparate and failed. Scowling, he ignited the tip of his wand with an actual flame and took a few paces forward, ready at any moment to defend or attack should this be a trap. But as the light cast by the fire passed close enough, there was a gleam of glistening, gluttonous red when Harry pulled a hand away from the back of his leg.

Severus smirked, transferring his wand to his left hand, but at the same time noticed that the spaces between the fingers on his dominant right hand were sticky and damp. Glancing down discreetly, he found that the entire white edge of his sleeve had been stained red and the flow of his own blood had extended down his hand, between his fingers, all the way to the tips.

Oh, yeah.

Potter had shot him.

Courtesy of the surge of adrenaline immediately following that attack, he had been ignorant to the pain of it, but the deep gash gave a tremendous throb the moment his mind slowed enough to recognize it for what it was. He growled angrily, pressing his hand firmly over the wound, willing the doctor inside him not to freak out about how filthy and unsanitary this was. But if he wanted to keep his blood inside his body versus out of it, it was necessary. This was a spell he had used often at the hospital, before Jasmine had arrived.

His heart gave a heavy pang inside his chest.

 _Hemostasis_

The bleeding began to slow; Severus could feel the wound tighten and dry beneath his hand, the excess blood that had already spilled chilling and cracking on his skin. His entire right sleeve felt stiff with drying blood.

Potter, however, was having a hell of a time getting his leg to stop bleeding. Severus turned to scowl down at him, defiantly ignoring his medical instincts to help the prat. Though he was deeply ashamed to feel a bit of disappointment in the pit of his gut. Yes, he had known he would win, but not like this.

"If you're too injured to resume, I believe it would be called a victory on my behalf," he stated cooly, but Potter had finally risen to hop unsteadily on his uninjured leg, attempting to right himself.

"Like Hell I'm giving you this over a fucking arrow," he replied rebelliously, raising his wand, though his facial expression betrayed a grimace of pain. He was still bleeding heavily; Severus could smell it on the clean air as it flowed down the back of his leg.

"The incantation is ' _hemostasis',"_ he supplied, turning away, angry with himself for assisting. He ought to let Potter bleed dry and leave him there in that field, never to be found. But he wanted their duel to continue; he was still full of unused energy and Magic, swirling through his veins, begging to be released. "Control the bleeding and collect yourself," he barked over his shoulder.

If Potter wanted any mercy, he would be shown none. But it seemed mercy was not what he was seeking, as he quickly used the spell to cease the bleeding from the back of his leg and rose fully to his feet. The tip of his wand released a small burst of stars and gold sparks at this motion and Severus' wand replied of its own accord with a sizzle of green electricity.

The moon had risen fully and sat as a pale orb in the sky above the mountain behind Potter, casting deep, pitch black shadows among the trees and the rolling landscape around them. The round glasses had of course broken at this point and Severus was wondering why the younger wizard had not placed an Unbreakable Charm on them, when Harry abruptly pulled them from his face and stowed them in a chest pocket on his jacket. He looked up from this and Severus braced for a reaction at the sight of the green color now exposed to him, the almond shape- the familiar pang of ache in his heart, the sick feeling in his stomach, any of it. And yet nothing came. His heart was already pounding but there was no pain. Something with which he was wholly unfamiliar filled him instead, from his head to his toes, a vicious, staggering pride, the likes of which he had never experienced before.

Before he could launch a renewed attack on his foe, a jinx was thrown in his direction, followed by three more in rapid succession. Drawn to the tip of his wand like a magnet, as he had done before, Severus deflected all four spells upward to the black, starless sky where they flashed white among the dark clouds.

In a space of a blink, one heartbeat, Severus returned volley, firing four of his own curses, which hit a Shield and exploded in a burst of purple light, bright enough to illuminate the entire field with a flash as though daylight had occurred instantly. Harry staggered a few steps backward under the force of the attack but Severus was already preparing his defense.

Anger, or some emotion kin to it, was blazing on Potter's bare face as he brought his arm back and swung it underhand, a streak of orange light leaving his wand in a beam.

Ah. Severus recognized this one; the deceased Sirius Black had used this curse on him at some point or another.

He blocked the spell with a Shield Charm, but it did not explode in a shower of sparks over the invisible barrier. Instead, Severus' wand began to vibrate as the attack continued; he watched the Magic swirl, bite and cut at the Shield, carving away whole sections of it. A smirk tugged upward on his lips as he brought his left hand up to join his right, gripping the wand to keep the Shield active and regenerative.

In the bright glow of the orange light only a foot or so from his face, thick, black, heavy smoke began to billow from the tip of his wand, flowing heavily over him from behind the Shield. He could feel it through his hair, down the back of his cloak, the smoke blending with the black color, hiding him from view. He dropped to one knee slowly and closed his eyes, his upper arms burning with the strain of holding the Shield.

Potter was not relenting; the orange beam of energy and Magic continued to beat against the barrier Severus Snape had placed before himself. He could barely see two inches in front of his face through the massive cloud...

Potter finally released his curse, breathing heavily as the area silenced, no sound audible beyond the wind from the ever-looming mountain. The plumes of black smoke continued to swirl and Harry leaned forward slightly to watch as it cleared. He illuminated the tip of his wand, held it high in the air, to see how his former professor had fared after that last attack. But as the billows were carried gradually away by the winds, a bare patch of previously destroyed grass and exposed dirt was revealed to him in the place where Severus had last stood.

Poof.

From his new elevated position, atop a boulder behind Harry, Severus watched with another rush of pride, cloak billowing silently, as the back of his opponent's empty head looked in all directions, even approached the location where the older wizard had disappeared. It was immensely tempting to fire a curse at his back, end it right then. But he was not ready yet.

Instead, he let out a shrill whistle between his teeth as if to call a dog. And exactly like a dumb dog, Potter spun around at the noise, just in time to hastily and sloppily block the jinx Severus fired. Those infernal green eyes widened in surprise, in something that looked very much like respect, or perhaps fear, as he stared momentarily up at the imposing form atop the jagged, uneven boulder. His gaze was drawn downward as a malicious ball of black and purple dark energy began to form and swirl in Severus' left, wandless hand.

He then threw himself into an all out sprint, directly toward the deeply shadowed line of trees. It could not have been more clear that he had no idea what that ball of swirling Magic was, but was not at all keen to find out. Severus released it for the time being, stepping down from the boulder to pursue his opponent once again.

That was one thing he could say for Harry- he had incredible stamina. He had always been a physically fit kid and it was encouraging to see that he had not gotten fat or out of shape since both becoming an Auror _and_ getting married.

 _However..._

What Potter was doing was wearing himself out- a critical and amateur error. And Severus was letting him do it, teaching him a valuable lesson for duels with others in the future. The more energy he wasted on running, the less energy he saved himself for producing strong Magic. Severus was simply striding after him, _ambling_ almost, allowing the young wizard to wear himself out thoroughly before he brought the sky down upon him. It was the same tactic wolves use to hunt; let the prey exhaust themselves, then move in for the kill.

A jet of blue light broke against the Shield Severus had cast in front of him, which blocked the spell but allowed a fine mist of water through the barrier. He turned his head, shutting his eyes tightly in case it was _not_ water, shivering as the frigid wind stuck his now wet hair to his face. There was an echoed laugh throughout the surrounding trees, Potter's voice seemingly magnified.

"You have no idea how long I've waited to use that on you!"

Bristling, Severus shook his stringy hair away from his face.

"GOOD!" He bellowed. The deepest notes of his voice echoed in the rocks and cliffs behind him. "Now you know how it felt to break your stupid fucking-"

Another jinx was released, but this time, Severus had been prepared for it. Instead of staying to put up yet another Shield, he focused hastily, stepped sideways and allowed himself to become Invisible.

He fancied himself rather good at Transfiguration and Invisibility was probably one of his favorite things Albus and Professor McGonagall had taught him. He merely took a step to the right and continued walking, wand at the ready. With a roll of his shoulders, he allowed the black cloak to slide off of him to lie black and unseen on the ground, knowing the dragging fabric rustling the grass behind him would tip Potter off to his location.

Another jinx fired from the line of the trees across the field from him. Severus watched it sail past, nowhere remotely close to hitting him. But he now had a rough estimate to where Potter was hiding, which made it that much easier to slide his eyes shut and pour a measure of energy into heightening his senses. Under the cover of a Shield and Invisibility, he was able to tune out the pounding of his own heart and listen for another.

It was faint, but he could hear Potter's heart hammering away inside his chest, clear on the other side of a field. Inside his mind swam an extremely blurry, fuzzy image of a dark silhouette crouched behind a tree, watching, bouncing on his heels, prepared to dash off in an instant.

He did absolutely nothing but allow a bolt of acid green lightning into the air from his wand to flush out his prey and 'watched' as Potter bolted through the trees, jumping over fallen ones, dodging branches. Severus heard his heart rate increase.

"It's brain over brawn all over again, Potter," he called. "-a concept your fool of a father never seemed able to grasp," His deep voice echoed, magically magnified by the use of his wand at his throat.

No sooner than the words had left his mouth, came a bright, silver-blue glow from the midst of the trees directly across the field from him.

" _EXPECTO PATRONUM!"_

Though he was still invisible, Severus knew the gigantic silver stag could see him without any issues whatsoever. He also knew that the Patronus was incapable of injuring him or harming him in any way.

There was simply something about the sight of it charging at him, full tilt across the field, that made him want to cut its fucking head off.

He allowed the Invisibility spell to release and his long form flickered into sight, lowering his wand and gripping it with both hands as it suddenly grew very heavy within his hands.

At his side, where his wand had been, gleamed a long, silver sword, the tip pointed at the ground, the black handle firmly between his hands. The blade was black as well, but sizzled and pulsated with dark energy, off-rhythm from his heartbeat in a rather unsettling sensation.

The stag was nearly to him now, lowering its massive crown of horns as it pounded silently, weightlessly across the grass. Severus drew the sword back, took one side step to let the Patronus miss him and swung upward in one, smooth, baseball-type swing. The edge of the sword was visible entering the neck of the stag for one fraction of a second.

 _Interficere Beatitudo..._

There was an odd, mournful sort of scream and the Patronus vanished, floating away as silvery wisps on the wind. The sword was gone and his wand returned, still and quiet in his hand.

God _damnit,_ that felt good.

But now, it was truly time to end it. They had been dueling for what felt like hours, though Severus had no current concept of the time. He began striding purposely toward the forest where Potter was hiding and made a sharp slashing motion with his wand along the line of trees ahead of him. A streak of light streamed from the end of his wand, swirling and emitting deafening crackles like that of pure lightning, arcing from the beam to the ground,to the the trees, into the air on the electrons. Branches both large and small were severed by these arcs, falling to the ground at random from the tops of the trees. The main beam was of the brightest white and he directed it along the line of trees, setting them ablaze as it moved.

He was done playing.

As expected, a dark, shadowed form darted out from the blazing trees and began to run in yet another circle toward another cluster of trees, but Severus had had enough and raised his wand once more. Taking the most careful aim yet, he cast a neat, simple Impedimenta jinx, hit Potter in the side, and he fell face first to the ground. This was followed shortly by a loud, exhausted groan.

Severus approached, a bit surprised to find himself quite tired as well, though not nearly as drained as his defeated opponent, who was still lying face-down on the cold ground, breathing heavily, his exhales visible in small puffs of condensation on the chilled wind. He grinned, using the toe of his boot to kick the wand away from Potter's hand, who did not resist and instead groaned again, louder, angrier.

"Fucking-..." he swore, finally gaining enough energy to bring both of his arms into a push-up position. "Damnit, I almost-" he stopped speaking to put a grunted effort into pushing himself onto his knees. "-had you!"

At this, Severus could not stop himself from letting out a laugh. "No, I assure you that was not the case," he replied smoothly, pushing his wand up into his long, black sleeve. "If you were anywhere near to defeating me, you would not be so completely drained of energy that you're unable to continue."

Still too exhausted to stand it seemed, Harry remained on his knees, breathing heavily and massaging the back of his injured leg. Severus walked past him, pacing, circling somewhat, hands clasped behind his back. He continued.

"Unsurprisingly, you made several crucial, very stupid mistakes, the culmination of which is your... _defeat."_ He deliberately placed emphasis on that word and paused before he went on. "Your first mistake was using your strongest Magic too early on, with your formation of the tornado. It was a pointless spell that cost you too much energy to be used so quickly into a duel."

While he spoke, Potter was clearly listening, as he turned his head to look up and watch while Severus rounded his other side, still pacing.

"Your biggest mistake by far was all the idiotic _running_ you did," He said this with particular pleasure. "Your father made the same mistake over and over, wasting himself on physical energy versus using it toward stronger Magic." He paused in both speech and movement as Potter finally rose to his feet and glared at him defiantly. "You would have done better to stay put and face me head on. By running, you turned yourself into a target...a _moving_ target, but an _unprotected_ one." He sneered in the direction of Harry's slowly bleeding leg.

When Potter seemed short on words, Severus took a step back and held his hands up. "Satisfied?" he asked, genuinely wanting to know whether Harry had fulfilled his lifelong dream of dueling him and hoping it was as unpleasant an experience as he had imagined.

Across from him, Harry finally broke a smirk at long last, shaking his head as he pulled his Magically repaired glasses from the pocket of his coat to reapply them. "Yeah," he answered somewhat distractedly. A moment later he winced, rubbing the back of his neck where he had fallen to the ground most recently. "I guess you haven't really lost your touch then, ay?"

Severus' eyebrow arched, his cold gaze glancing down at Potter's tattered clothes, his bleeding leg, the bleeding cut on his face, the dirt and filth all over him from running through the trees, the explosions, the tornado. Aside from the rip and gash in his upper arm, he was untouched.

"No," he drawled in a very flat voice. "I'd say not." He took a step forward, pleased with the way his defeated rival took a responsive step back. "Now, if you don't mind, I would very much like to be left alone for the rest of my life, as I've _said before._ Apparate now, back to Britain and stay there."

For the longest moment, Harry looked at him through the lenses of his glasses, a surprisingly unreadable expression in his eyes. Severus truly could not decipher what it was and vaguely, he wondered if perhaps this was how it felt to look into his own eyes- solid, impenetrable gates. Potter was perhaps a better Occlumens than dueling partner.

Eventually, he held out a hand for Severus to grasp in a handshake. Honestly a bit puzzled by the gesture, he looked down at it briefly, for just a moment, before he accepted the hand and clasped it tightly.

For a split second, Harry's face lit up in surprise, before a strong, audible _ZZZZAP_ of electricity flowed through Severus, through his arm, taking the past of least resistance to the hand of Potter held tightly in his grip. The younger wizard jumped with a shouted curse word, yanking his hand back to clutch his fingers.

Severus smirked, holding out his unharmed hand as the abandoned cloak zoomed toward him. He caught it, turned on the spot in a whirl of black and was gone.

 _CRACK_

A/N (cont'd): I hope you guys enjoyed this one! It was SO MUCH FUN to write and I hope I was able to convey that through the duel itself! I'm so excited for all the crazy stuff that is coming soon!

I also wanted to put a feeler out- I'm on the current look-out for someone gifted in the drawing/art/graphic art/fanart department to maybe do a few sketches/drawings for me? I'd love to see some cute/funny art of Jasmine and Dr. Prince! Drop me a private message or email me at RachelDormois89 AT gmail dot com if you're interested!

As always, reviews are super duper awesome but only leave one if you want to! By the way, the amount of reviews on the previous chapter was so amazing! Thank you all x10000000!


	12. A Perfect Mess

There was no other way to put it.

Severus had tried, though admittedly not very hard, to come up with a more intelligent way of wording how it felt to return to the hospital the night following a _very_ satisfying duel. But try as he might, he could not find a better way to describe it, other than it flat out fucking _sucked._

Leaving that field, which he could now appropriately call a 'battlefield', had been heart wrenching. How easy would it have been to simply build himself a home right there? To live his life in peace, watch the sun rise over the Pacific every morning, nearly on the other side of the Earth from where he had been born, raised, lived and died. And he could do Magic, whenever for whatever reason, with only an occasional Apparition to a town for groceries and whatnot.

 _But no._

He had left Britain, left his home and old life behind specifically to have a new one. He loathed himself for it but moving from one life of isolation to another, deeper life of isolation was not at all what he deemed smart or healthy for himself. He had wanted to feel _better_. And yes, while he hated that he could do so little Magic in the hospital any more and yes, while he hated that he had to use a cell phone and computers and all that nonsense, he was living the life he had wanted. He'd made it. Giving it all up now just to go live alone on some cliff in California seemed dumb and wasteful of all his hard work.

For this reason, he swung his car into the garage with particular savagery the night following the duel with Potter. He was already feeling some kind of way and his tires squealed in protest as he turned into a doctor's parking space near the doors, turned off the car and got out, stethoscope in hand, back teeth clenched. The slam of his car door echoed in the mostly empty parking garage.

Oh, Jasmine was going to _love_ him tonight...

He began walking to the staff entrance, pulling his identification card from his pocket, but noticed through the 'pre-bad mood' haze that he was approaching the back end of a running car, the exhaust visible as gray, dense clouds on the frosty air. One eyebrow arched as he approached the source of the noise, smell and gray smoke. He allowed a very subtle turn of his head to glance in through the back window, to see if he would recognize the person inside it. However, the moment he rounded a mini-van and saw a bushy, blonde ponytail smashed against the headrest with a phone to her ear, he looked away, his stomach lurching as though he had missed a step going down stairs.

He continued on his way with a renewed speed in his step but his eyebrow arched further and he spared a glance at his watch. The time was very near eight o'clock and Jasmine was still in her car? On the phone? Hell, typically by the time he got there, she had already been clocked in for fifteen minutes, had a case for him, ready and raring to go.

Odd.

Also not his problem nor concern.

After a quick trip into the men's locker room to change into the navy scrubs he so hated, thinking fondly back on how it had felt to wear his black ensemble again to duel Potter, he arrived at his usual post at the back nurses' station. Dr. Oakes had already been there for two hours. It had apparently been a slow two hours, as he was leaned comfortably back in his chair, doing that idiotic zipping thing with his identification badge. He smirked when he saw Severus approaching, who rolled his eyes in return.

"Hey, buddy!"

"No."

Severus declined the conversation abruptly and sat down to type his password into the computer. There was a only a moment of silence from Oakes before he spoke again.

"So, you're in a _great_ mood..." he commented slowly, sitting up in his chair. "Bad night off?"

Severus' broad shoulders lifted and dropped with the depth of his sigh, his eyes scanning patient intake notes. "I could not properly explain my night off to you if I had one hundred years," he replied in one very measured breath of air. "Suffice it to say-" He stood up, tucking his stethoscope into his back pocket. "-that I hate being here right now."

With that, he walked away, leaving Dr. Oakes with a bizarre sort of look on his face, one of surprise and something that looked rather impressed. Severus rolled his eyes as he walked into the triage area, to the massive central nurses' unit. Oakes probably thought he had been referring to a particularly excellent night off with a woman, locked in the throes of romance for a full twenty-four hours. Quite honestly, Severus preferred he think that versus knowing the truth- having a wand battle with a former student in the middle of fucking nowhere using _mag-_

"Dr. Prince, I'm so sorry-"

So caught up in his musings, Severus had to fight hard not to jump in startled surprise at Jasmine's voice so unexpectedly beside him. He blinked once instead and flipped open a chart, his expression completely unchanged.

"You're late," he stated baldly.

He felt rather than heard the long beat of silence that Jasmine let pass before she inhaled to reply. Looking at her was completely unnecessary; he could picture her polite but 'triggered', taken-back expression. Her left eyebrow always twitched upward and her upper lip did this unsettling snarl sort of thing.

"Yeah, I was dealing with some annoying bullshit and just couldn't get enough, so I came to work for some more."

She said it so smoothly.

Severus' eyes rose very slowly from the chart, which he slapped shut as he turned his head to glare down at her. Without warning, his stomach did that lurching thing again as he saw the true expression on her face; it was nothing like he had imagined it in his mind.

Jasmine looked exhausted, her hair rather larger than usual, her normally perfect posture somewhat slumped. Dark circles lay in shadows beneath her eyes, a vague touch of residual redness among her eyelashes, the whites of her eyes and her nose. Her lips seemed a bit swollen.

God damnit.

She had been crying.

Every ounce of his being, every last fiber of himself wanted to ask 'Are you alright?'. It was on the tip of his tongue, eager to be spoken, to show half an ounce of actual concern for her well-being. Because that was what he felt at that moment- true concern. The nurse standing before him was not at all the nurse he had become accustomed to working with. It barely even looked like her. It was truthfully a bit unsettling.

And yet he bit it back, denied himself the chance. Instead, he returned her glare, forcefully holding the eye contact as he spoke.

"Do mind your attitude and language, Miss. Taylor," His tone was perfectly level but silky and dangerous, hoping to convey that he was not at all in a good mood either. "If you are incapable of doing so, you are excused for the remainder of your shift."

It seemed Jasmine had no reply to this, as she merely nodded and gestured to the chart in his hand. "What do we have first?" she asked in a poor attempt and spectacular failure at her usual cheery voice.

Severus sniffed, handed the chart to her and began walking in the direction of the curtained exam room. Jasmine followed suit, fortunately keeping her usual pace a half-step behind him; if she had failed to do that, something would have been seriously wrong.

"Thirty-nine year old white male, presents with fever of-"

"A hundred and _five_ point 6?" she interrupted him, her voice gaining a note of it's usual springiness. "And his wife thinks it's just the flu? I don't think so..." Severus listened, unable to suppress a smirk. There she is. She stopped just in time to avoid walking into him when he came to an abrupt halt outside the exam room. He turned to look down at her as her eyes slowly drifted up from the chart. She had just read the last line of notes.

Her eyes darted up to meet his, vibrant blue against the vague redness of her scleras. Both sadness and surprise were visible within them, along with something a bit defeated, as though she had been hoping desperately for a less upsetting case.

Honestly, so had Severus.

After a physical exam, during which Severus wore gloves and the young man and his wife explained his rapid weight loss, how tired he had been lately, the vomiting, the diarrhea, showing him the random sore spots on his tongue, he excused himself and Jasmine from the room, outside and away from the curtain. He stripped his gloves carefully and placed them in a biohazard container next to a hand-washing and disinfecting station.

Jasmine was writing notes diligently in the chart as she stood next to him. He glanced up at her profile as he washed his hands, at the determined look on her face, and also the intense heaviness about her eyes. He truly hated seeing her this way.

"You will wear a pair of N90 gloves to obtain his blood sample," he stated abruptly, removing his foot from the petal that operated the faucet and reaching for a clean drape towel in a bin overhead. As expected, Jasmine's ponytail bounced slightly as she turned her head quickly to look up at him. Her expression fell, if possible, even further.

"Do you really think it's-"

Severus interrupted. "I've no idea what he's got, but whatever it is, I'd rather you exercise _caution,_ obviously," he said waspishly, distinctly not looking at her as he took the chart to write the orders for the battery of diagnostic tests to which he would be subjecting this man's blood. Every drop held an answer.

However, an hour later, this man's blood revealed that he had acquired a massive infection from an auto-immune disease and his body was unable to fight it. Jasmine had brought him the lab results but had not lingered long enough for him to see in her face whether she had perhaps read the slips of numbers for herself.

And he did not see her again until after he had spoken with the man privately, without the presence of his wife, by law, to inform him that he had tested positive for HIV and that his white blood cell count indicated that he was very likely in the early stages of acquired immune deficiency syndrome or AIDS. Severus informed him that he would be transferred shortly to the intensive care unit, under a doctor by the name of Singh, who would begin treatment immediately. He had then left the room after advising the man that he was required, by law, to inform his wife and any other sexual partners, past and-or present. Whether or not the man actually did so was solely down to him.

At that point, his job was done. Whether or not the man lived was now up to Dr. Singh and quite frankly, Severus was fine with that. He could spare no more emotion tonight, as he had already reached peak capacity effort in simply being present at the hospital. As a team of nurses bustled past, bearing the young, HIV positive man on a stretcher, wife in tow, he allowed himself a moment to take a deep breath in, and slowly exhale, watching them as they disappeared around a corner. This had not been a fantastic case for him to start off with. And it seemed to have crumpled Jasmine altogether. Glancing around, Severus found no sight of her bushy ponytail among the bustle near the central nursing unit nor anywhere else in triage.

It may have been that she had returned to the back nurses' station in search of him with another chart. So he decided he needed to go there regardless to computerize his notes on the previous case, and that perhaps, he would check and see if she was there while he did so. Only one case into the night and he was more than ready to go home. Perhaps Jasmine would be in better spirits by then and would help give him a boost of energy.

Whether or not she was aware of it, Jasmine's positive energy was infectious and Severus often found himself feeding off of it. He was a naturally negative person but something about her presence brought him comfort, much the same effect as she seemed to have on their patients. Earlier into their working relationship, he had thought it had been the bad coffee or tea she fetched him, but he was beginning to wonder if it had not perhaps been the gesture itself.

Wherever _THAT_ Jasmine was, he would love to know, because the sulky, upset one from earlier was not very much to his taste in nurses. However, neither form of Jasmine, cheery or otherwise, was present at the back nurses' station when he arrived there. But Dr. Oakes was. Severus' forehead contracted in a frown as he stepped into the station, past the other doctor.

"Have you seen Jasmine?" he asked, despite how much he knew he was going to hate the way Oakes spun in his chair to look at him.

Had Severus been in any other kind of mood or perhaps bore even a slightly friendlier expression, Oakes would have likely commented teasingly on his use of her first name. Fortunately, he refrained but nodded his head toward the hallway on the far side of the nurses' station.

"She went that way about three minutes ago," he answered, turning back to the computer in front of him. "I think she had to take a phone call."

A phone call? In the middle of her shift?

Jasmine usually left her phone in her locker or in a drawer, and never so much as looked at it while she was clocked in, on the job. It was one of those things he had come to like about her, in fact; she was not so attached to the thing that she needed to check it every five minutes. Unlike _Oakes,_ who was constantly on his phone-

"Dr. Oakes," Severus suddenly snapped, in such a tone that the younger doctor jumped, looking up quickly from the illuminated screen in his hands. "How many active cases are you attending currently?"

Oakes blinked, glancing down at the desk where three files lay jumbled. Severus did not give him time to reply verbally. "Put your damn phone away and go get three more cases. You will not attend less than five at a time tonight, do you understand? " His temper was getting away from him, quickly. He continued; it felt too good to siphon some of this off on Mark. "I'm sick of seeing you sitting around on your ass while the nurses do substandard work in their effort to make up for your slack."

For the longest moment, the expression on Dr. Oakes' face was remarkably similar to that of someone _very_ close to hitting him. Without trying, Severus could practically hear him thinking how much he'd like to hit him, how tempting it was to tell him to go fuck himself. With great effort it seemed, he stood up calmly, dropped his phone onto the counter with a clatter, and walked away, stethoscope in hand. Severus watched him go for a moment before rolling his eyes. This was not their first 'conversation' concerning laziness and sitting around.

More importantly, he was still seeking Jasmine, not only to find out where she had gone for the remainder of their last case but also, if he was being honest with himself, to find out whether or not she was alright. Something was definitively off-color about her that night and despite himself, he found his curiosity stirred. He only knew a small portion of this woman, so he had only one or two guesses as to what could be affecting her this heavily. And neither option was favorable to the other.

Halfway down the hall, Severus' ears picked up the muffled sound of a voice, raised slightly, but only getting one or two words out at a time. Carefully, he focused his mind on the sound of her voice and allowed his hearing to hone in. He could suddenly hear Jasmine in his ears, as if through headphones.

"Jeremy! Listen to me-"

His heart sank.

Oh, no...

"I'm not coming ba-" She tried again to speak but apparently, the person on the other end of the line could not be bothered to pause long enough.

Severus had heard plenty. He was fast approaching the room in which she had taken her personal call and would be able to hear her either way, despite however much he would like not to. As he reached for the handle, he paused, glancing into the room through the small window in the door. Jasmine was standing with her profile to him, leaned against a counter, her head bowed with one hand bracing her forehead. It was difficult to see from the window whether or not she was crying, but Severus decided hastily that he would rather not know just yet. He pulled open the door.

As expected, Jasmine jumped away from the counter and slapped her phone shut, her eyes wide, but no longer red nor puffy. Severus felt a bit of surprise at this, mingled with a touch of respect. She had apparently been able to refrain from tears since before arriving at work and he felt there was something to be said for that. And whomever _Jeremy_ was had just been hung up on.

Good.

As Severus stepped further into the room, Jasmine slid her phone into the pocket of her scrub top and took one slow, careful step backward away from him, just as she always did. A frustrated frown broke through his stony expression and he shook his head, still unsure why she felt the need to do this whenever he approached her, but nowhere near ready to ask. He felt her true answer might sicken him.

…...

Dr. Prince stopped walking about halfway between her and the door. Jasmine had felt her aching heart go flying into her throat at the sound of the door opening and the sight of his tall, somewhat menacing figure in the way. But as he had approached, his expression softened the tiniest of bits, as though he was just too tired to frown any longer. His hands slid into the pockets of his scrub pants and he shrugged, angular shoulders rising and dropping.

"Where have you been?" he asked simply.

His voice was gentler, quieter than it had been earlier, adjusted to account for the lack of noise from the bustling triage room around them. It was crisp and clear as a bell, reverberating slightly in the otherwise empty room. Goosebumps coated her forearms; she still hadn't gotten used to it.

She hesitated on her answer. How could she ever relay to him the text messages, the emails, the phone calls, all from the very last person she had ever wanted to hear from again in her life? How could she explain to him the thing her heart had done when she had answered the phone before work to hear the voice of the person she had once planned to spend the rest of her life with? The person who now disgusted her more than any other person on Earth? How could he possibly understand any of it? And why would she want him to?

She patted the phone in her scrub pocket with the most nonchalant shrug she could manage and began to walk toward the door beyond him. "Sorry, Doc, I had an important phone call," she replied in an equally casual tone.

As she passed him, he spoke again, so near to her that she could practically feel his voice inside her chest. "Family emergency by chance?"

Jasmine stopped mid-step, only a few feet from the door and turned back slowly to glare at him. It was a good attempt, she had to admit, using his dislike of her aunt to _very_ cleverly tip toe around outright asking who had been so important that she had needed to disappear for almost an hour. She forced a weary smirk onto her face and shook her head.

"Nope, it was the Queen," she answered, raising and lowering one shoulder. "Just callin' to check in on ya."

Dr. Prince shook his head, exhaling a quiet laugh that sounded a bit more frustrated than amused. "Jasmine," he began. She blinked up at him. He so rarely used her first name that it always caught her attention. "If you need to be elsewhere-"

"No," She could not help but interrupt him. There was no way in hell Jeremy was going to keep her from doing her job and there was no way she was going to allow Dr. Prince to 'suffer' (she figured he'd probably prefer it, honestly) alone if she went home early. She continued, waving a hand in a wanna-be airy fashion. "No, seriously, I'm fine," she answered. When Dr. Prince's eyebrow merely arched more sharply in response, she let out a tired laugh. "I told you, it's just some annoying bullsh-..." She hesitated, remembering his warning about language and her eyes rolled. "Look, neither of us are in a great mood but-"

The phone in her pocket began vibrating again. She seized it through the scrub pocket and squeezed, pressing the button on the side to silence it. She had known he would not give up easily once released from jail to find that his ex-fiance had moved across the country, but this was getting ridiculous. Although how he had been surprised to find that she was now his ex remained a mystery to her. Had he seriously expected her to simply write off what had happened and continue planning their wedding without a hitch?

The urge to cry was overwhelming, but she fought it back down, virtually swallowing it to prevent Dr. Prince from seeing her tears. He seemed to have noticed that her phone had begun ringing again as he pointed lazily at her pocket. Jasmine glanced down quickly to see that a square of light was perfectly visible through the material of her scrubs. Great.

He moved toward her but she stayed put, her hand clamped over the phone, watching as he passed her in favor of the door. He had not looked down, his eyes had not moved at all and yet Jasmine still felt like he was looking directly at her. She felt her cheeks flush and her stomach dropped to her pelvic floor as the phone _once again_ began to vibrate. She squeezed the device again to silence it but Dr. Prince's shoulders tensed visibly beneath the material of the back of his scrubs.

Without turning to look at her, he spoke. "Handle your business within the next fifteen minutes or you will be sent home," His voice was very level and calm, but Jasmine was not fool enough to believe for one moment that he was not completely and entirely fed up with her distraction that night. She knew his voice only took on that tone of evenness when he was feeling particularly annoyed.

"Yes, Dr. Prince."

It was all she could think to say. Her heart was pounding painfully, her head was splitting, her stomach was knotted and as she watched Dr. Prince's tall form disappear around the edge of the door, she exhaled a breath she did not realize she had been holding. She had never meant for any of her past to affect her job, to affect _him._ Her eyes burned again but she took a deep breath and closed them, pulling her phone from her pocket. Her thumb wedged between the edges and flipped it open. It vibrated two more times. Two text messages.

She would have to apologize to Dr. Prince later. The phone would be turned off and put away until after her shift and _then_ she could deal with-

' _Come outside NOW'_

Her eyes had opened to read the first text message.

' _I'm at your car. COME OUTSIDE.'_

… _..._

Thus far, the shift was not at all what Severus had been hoping for. What he had wanted, what he had _needed_ rather, was to come into work in a bad mood, have Jasmine cheer him up, attempt to overdose on caffeine then go home and sleep. That was all he had needed to bring him back to reality after the duel with Potter. The first case had been rather emotional, Jasmine was in a terrible mood and dealing with something he had absolutely no control over, Oakes was being a dick, he couldn't find his favorite pen, he was tired, his arm hurt-

And yet Jasmine was there, in a much worse situation, one with which he could somewhatidentify. A piece of her past had come back to haunt her at the one place she thought she was safe. Granted, _her_ problem was only visible by phone; she could very easily power down the device. _His_ problem had arrived there in the flesh. Powering _that_ down would not have been so easy. He was not sure which was worse and it did not matter. Although he was certain that he had not looked nearly as broken and grief-stricken as Jasmine did.

As he approached the central nurses' station to fetch another chart for himself, he glanced at his watch. He had left the room seven minutes ago. Another eight and Jasmine would be going home. And for whatever reason, Severus sincerely did not want her leaving before him, without him. As he scanned the massive triage unit for a curly ponytail, a random vision of the back of her head swam within his mind, the fingers on his left hand tingling as the nerves there recalled the sensation of how she had shaken beneath his grip as he dug staples from her scalp. A surge of hatred and anger swelled inside him unexpectedly like sick and he snatched a chart at random to begin the case alone. She had seven minutes to join him.

Twenty minutes and one very long-winded, one-sided conversation with a man high on cocaine later, Severus emerged from the curtained exam room, positively seething. Junkies made him angry alone, but the fact that Jasmine _still_ had not come to find him, over a half hour after he had instructed her to deal with her situation? His back teeth met together and clenched. The Muggle world had welcomed him back with open arms, only to drive a knife deep into his side, repaying him for his choice to remain there over the paradise he could create on the other side of the country.

As he passed through the emptying triage unit to the hallway toward the back nurses' station, he did not bother looking for Jasmine. Either she would be sitting at the station, waiting for his return or she would have gone home of her own volition; he somehow doubted she would linger long enough for him to excuse her face-to-face.

However, whatever control Severus felt he had exercised over himself that night vanished instantly as he rounded the corner to find only Dr. Oakes sitting in his usual place, making notes in a chart, the rest of the station empty.

"God-" He slapped the junkie's chart down on the counter with much more force than necessary. _"-Damnit!"_

Oakes jumped at the sudden motion and noise but threw his pen hard in anger at the back of the counter where it clattered and knocked several pinned notices from the cork board. "Jesus Christ, Prince! What is your _deal-_ "

"Where is Jasmine?" Severus interrupted him without pretense.

Oakes blinked, his angry expression dissipating for a moment in surprise, before it returned quickly. His eyes narrowed and hardened as he fished his pen from behind the computer monitor. "How the fuck should I know? She's _your_ nurse, right?"

Liar.

Severus waited for Oakes to look up at him again before he hastily focused his mind and forced entry through the black holes in the middle of the younger doctor's eyes. The Muggle would be none the wiser as Severus would only be watching his current thoughts.

 _Legilimens..._

 _Jasmine was approaching the nurses' station, phone pressed to her ear. Oakes had looked up at the sound of her voice, though she fell silent as she passed him. Panic was written all over her face, but she had spoken very calmly to Mark._

 _"I gotta get something from my car. Tell Dr. Prince I'll be right back."_

Severus emerged from the mind of his colleague hastily before he could stumble onto anything else or raise suspicion, his chest pounding with the force of his heartbeat. He could not ask about the memory he had seen, but this hardly mattered; the panic he had seen on her face through the eyes of another had said enough. Abandoning the chart on the counter, Severus immediately turned away toward the back of the triage unit, his stride lengthening. Alongside the anger that had flared up inside him, the concern he had felt earlier returned in full measure; he sincerely hoped her car would still be in the garage.

He could hear voices before he had even reached the door to the parking garage, faintly audible in the same hallway where he had first encountered Linda Sinclair. His heart gave several strong pangs as his ears picked up the sound of a deeper, male voice echoing in the concrete structure beyond. So that was why Jasmine had refused to turn off her phone or leave it behind; she had known he would come and wanted to make sure he would not make it inside the building.

Frigid, early December air bit at his exposed arms as the door to the garage opened, but he felt no desire for any sort of warmth; he did not need it. The blood rushing in his veins was keeping him plenty warm and the cold air did nothing but fuel him. Fortunately, Jasmine had parked somewhat close to the door. Perhaps on purpose.

At the sound of the door, both sides of the argument silenced immediately and Severus took a few steps out, until he could see both Jasmine and a young man at the end of her car, whose blotchy, reddening face turned quickly toward him.

Ah...

Jeremy, with the anger problem, he presumed.

Despite the surge of hatred, Severus could not help but smirk a bit at the sight of the scruffy, bearded, rather short, younger man.

Really? This guy?

Cold, calculating eyes moved calmly from Jeremy to Jasmine, who stood between her car and the next, looking distinctly upset and completely cornered. She was clutching her car keys, her eyes wide as they darted between Jeremy and himself. He slid his hands into his pockets, feeling the same sort of placid readiness fall over him as it had done the previous night in the field in California. He continued toward them. His eyes remained on Jasmine as he approached but he watched her ex-fiance from his periphery, whose face was growing steadily redder as he attempted to contain his rage.

Once within a distance that would not require him to raise his voice, Severus spoke, directly to Jasmine, his gaze trained on her massive, panicked, blue eyes. His stomach twisted but his voice was steady.

"Jasmine, is everything alright?" he asked gently, though it could not have been more clear that everything was not at all right. But he wanted to give her the chance to tell him to go back inside and mind his own business. He wanted her to decide for herself whether this was something she felt she could handle alone. He would _not_ come to her aid unless she wanted or needed it. He had learned enough about Jasmine thus far to know that she would only ever ask for help if she really, truly needed it. This was yet another thing he had come to find both annoying and attractive about her.

As she stood between the two cars however, looking shorter than ever, he felt a bit of frustration well up behind the heavily confident mask he wore. She was too damn _small_ to be so stubborn and independent.

Ex-fiance could apparently no longer contain his rage as Jasmine stammered wordlessly for an answer to his question. His voice exploded out of him, one tattooed hand rising to point a finger at Severus.

"Who the fuck is this asshole?" he demanded loudly, crassly of Jasmine, who looked very close to the point of fainting. She did not answer, which seemed to anger Jeremy even further. He took several quick steps toward Severus, who did not move, but instead watched coldly as Jasmine finally broke her silence to squeal, "Jeremy, don't!"

That was sweet. But Dr. Prince had been praying for this.

"I said who the _FUCK_ are y-"

The moment Jeremy's fist made contact with Severus' already throbbing right arm, it was over. In one heartbeat, one blink, both hands had seized the front of the shorter man's shirt, whipped him around and slammed him with full strength against the back of the minivan to the right of Jasmine's car. His teeth bared in a snarl as the van's alarm began to howl through the empty garage. Jasmine had let out a scream but did not move from where she stood.

Jeremy's face blanched of color as Severus held him pinned to the van, lifted slightly to be more at his own eye level.

"I'm the _asshole_ who dug four staples and thirty-two sutures out of the back of your ex-fiance's head," His voice was only loud enough for the two of them to hear, his tone venomous, his words drowned out to Jasmine by aid of the deafening car alarm. Severus' grip redoubled and Jeremy flinched, struggling to remain on his toes. "I'm _also_ the assholewho knows how to kill you and get away with it."

He stopped struggling as those words reached him, what little color was left in his face draining.

Then without thinking about it, without so much as a thought to consider the consequences of doing so, he released Jeremy with a shove, took a step back and focused.

 _Imperio_

In a beautifully natural movement, Jeremy righted himself, looking like an altogether different person as the Curse swept over him. His eyes softened and he merely looked at Severus, awaiting instruction. Jasmine was silent but he could not see whether or not she was noticing the change in his demeanor.

Hastily, Severus spoke within the Cursed mind of her ex-fiance.

 _You will leave here peacefully, go back to your home and never return._

It was very tempting to instruct this man to put a gun in his mouth at first chance but Severus refrained. Jasmine would not handle it well were she to hear of her ex-fiance's supposed 'suicide'.

In the most natural movement of an Imperiused Muggle Severus had yet seen, Jeremy turned away to walk toward a red, apparently rented car parked a few spaces down the row from where he stood. Severus watched him go for one moment before his lips moved silently, to form the word ' _Obliviate'._

Jeremy would not remember the incident that had just occurred. He would fly home as planned originally with no recollection at all of the past twenty-four hours. His phone had already been fried and wiped instantly the moment he had put his hands on him.

Confident in his spellwork, Severus turned away from watching the back of the red car disappear, only to find that the place where Jasmine had stood, between her car and the next, was empty. But she had not gone far; she had already started walking and was nearly to the entrance back into the hospital. Panic washed over him as he noticed how determined her gait was, how her hands had balled into fists at her sides. Had she noticed the Curse? Or perhaps heard what he had said?

"Jasmine," he said her name gently, hoping she would stop and turn around, come back so he could see her into her car and out of the garage.

She did not. She flat-out ignored him as she continued toward the employee doors.

With a roll of his eyes, Severus trotted a few steps after her and spoke again.

"Jasmine, stop," He said this with a bit more urgency to his voice, praying that she would turn around on her own and he would not have to touch her with his hand to stop her.

Again, she ignored him but had picked up her pace. As she approached the employee door, however, she was forced to slow down, just enough that Severus caught up and was able to reach out one finger to rest on her arm. It was the least threatening thing he knew how to do at the moment. But even this one small touch was all it took for Jasmine to snap.

She yanked her arm away from him, taking several steps back, her admittedly pretty face turned horrible in her fury. "It's none of your business, okay?" she practically shouted, as much as her soft voice would allow her. Her words shook at around the same frequency as her hands as she pushed them both up into the front of her hair to both smooth her curls back and look insane simultaneously. "You shouldn't have come out here-" she continued. Severus watched, silent. "He's not-...I had it under control-"

His disagreement with her statement was so great that he could not stop himself from interrupting. "It certainly did not look that way to me. Seeing how you were literally cornered..." he stated rather more coldly than he head meant to. When Jasmine's eyes widened in fresh anger, he continued, softening his tone. "I understand that it is none of my business. I was merely going to ask if you would like to go home. It's late and I'll be fine without you for the remainder of the shift."

The cataclysmic manner in which Jasmine's expression fell told Severus that he had made a very poor choice of words indeed. Her clear, blue eyes hardened into ice as she glared with a look cold enough to pierce him. He could see the words 'fine without you' reflected painfully back to him.

"Sorry, Dr. Prince, but I'm not going _anywhere_ until my shift is over," Her voice was so soft and so dangerously reminiscent of Sinclair's 'business-time' voice that Severus nearly flinched. "You'll have to put up with me for another hour and a half."

The door to the hospital closed behind her with an echoing clatter in the empty parking garage. If he had been exhausted earlier, it was nothing to what he felt now.

Upon returning to the nurses' station while Jasmine had disappeared off to God only knew where, Dr. Oakes, who was due to leave at two o'clock and had overstayed his shift by almost forty-five minutes, had some very choice words for Severus. He did finally relent and told him to go fuck himself over his five case minimum rule, go fuck himself for 'throwing a chart at him', go fuck himself for his shitty attitude, and lastly, go fuck himself for disappearing for twenty minutes after he was supposed to take over as attending physician.

Severus let it all in one ear and right out the other. He was just too drained after that last adrenaline rush to listen or even remotely care about what was being said to him. The following night, Oakes would come in and act as though nothing had happened and they would have another spat like this in another few weeks. More interesting to him was the sight of Jasmine headed full-tilt in his direction, chart in hand, sparing a sideways glare at the fuming Oakes as she passed him on his way out. Once within arm's distance, she handed the file to him, the same one he had slammed down earlier in her absence. She blinked up at him, eyes dry, clear and bright; she still had not shed a single tear.

"What are your orders for Mr. Roderick?"

The remaining hour and half of the shift seemed to last an eternity, with a heavy abundance of silence from Jasmine, whom normally Severus seemed unable to shut up. The lack of noise from her seemed to press upon his eardrums and he found himself incapable of looking at her. He was unsure why. It may have perhaps been the fact that he had just literally thrust himself between her and her ex-fiance, perhaps the fact that he had very briefly considered killing said ex-fiance, the fact that he had done blatant Magic directly in front of her. But deep down, Severus felt most deeply afraid that one of the times he glanced over at her, he would find tears sliding quietly down her cheeks.

And yet, as the end of the shift arrived and Jasmine finally shredded the meager one or two notes she had written for the night, Severus glanced over one last time and found her eyes dry. Relief washed through him but again, he was unsure why the sight of her crying _bothered_ him so much.

Unsurprisingly, after practically throwing the ex-fiance into the back end corner of a minivan (He was sure it would bruise. Jeremy would be so confused. And sore. Good.) his mood had quieted a bit, the anger had gone but the frustration remained. Why had she not just gone home when he had asked her to? What was she trying to prove? That she could work through literally _any_ situation? If that was the case, color Severus mildly impressed. But if it happened again, he would have to consider either another use of the Imperius Curse on Jasmine _or_ simply stuff her physically into her car and demand that she leave, lest he call security.

And the weird feeling from earlier lingered, like heartburn, (It definitely might have been heartburn; Severus had been discovering the joys of aging lately.) A gut feeling deep enough to be an instinct was encouraging him to time it to where they would leave the hospital at the same time. He could not leave before her, and for the life of him, he had no idea why. The feeling was strong enough that Severus decided to follow it, see why he needed to stay. Or rather, why he felt he did anyway.

He did not rush through changing back into normal clothes, his jeans, his normal, long-sleeved thermal shirt, and he was just applying his coat in the hallway to the parking garage when he heard the telltale, depressing echo of a car engine attempting to turn over. A tired but amused smirk slid over his face as he draped a black scarf around his neck. What weather to be stranded in.

As he stepped outside, however, there was a distinct 'click' in his mind where things connected and he realized that the car attempting to start was the bent, ruined thing he had seen Jasmine sitting in what felt like years ago. His heart sank to somewhere around his navel as he continued toward the source of the sound, toward his own car...only a few spaces down from her. He _had_ to pass her.

The urge to go Invisible was overwhelming.

But obviously, this had been the reason his mind and instincts had told him to wait, not rush off. His senses had known this was going to happen and that he needed to be there for it. He gave a shudder that had nothing to do with the cold; the only other person he had known to experience this sort of phenomenon was Albus Dumbledore. He would have to consider it later.

For this reason, he slowed to a halt as he reached the back end of her car, stethoscope and hands tucked into his coat pockets. Jasmine had seen him immediately, as she was sitting halfway out of the car, attempting to start it with the driver's side door open. Severus' eyebrows rose slightly but he remained silent as the loud engine tried its very hardest to start once more, before promptly clattering to a dead stop.

Without paying him the slightest bit of attention, she swung herself out of the car, to the front of it, where the hood had already been propped open. Ashamed at himself for how amusing he found this, Severus followed suit, simply to look at her face as she stared down into the engine and five million other car parts, clearly without even the faintest idea what she was looking at. He bet Jasmine would understand a human _brain_ sooner than she would understand the workings of a vehicle.

Smirking, he took a deep breath in through his nose and exhaled, his breath leaving him on a dense cloud of condensation. It was quite cold and Jasmine had started to shiver. Yet there she stood, in the fucking freezing cold trying to fix what was _clearly_ a dead car.

Despite himself, Severus finally spoke. "Any idea what's wrong with it?"

He dared not laugh, but damn did he want to. He felt terrible for her but her stubbornness was just staggering to him.

Abruptly, she brushed by him, toward the driver's seat and leaned into the car, where she attempted to start it. The vehicle gave three, sad clicks and was silent.

Her reaction was immediate, her bright eyes filling to the brim with tears, which overflowed her lower lids and cascaded in massive drops to land on the t-shirt beneath the edges of her coat. Severus was visited by a massive urge to look away, but for whatever reason, he ignored it. She looked much smaller than usual as she finally broke down into tears, turning away from him to fold her arms on the open door of the car. Once her face was hidden from him, buried in her arms, Jasmine let out the most pitiful sob Severus had ever heard in his life.

It tore through his chest like claws, like fingernails on a blackboard times one hundred and he cringed, removing his hands from his pockets, taking one step to cross the two or so feet between them. Without thinking, having apparently lost his mind, Severus reached out and placed both of his hands on her; one on her arm, the other on her opposite.

Almost the very moment he touched her, Jasmine melted and allowed him to pull her into a hug. Another of those awful sobs escaped her as her cheek made contact with his upper chest, but the sound was muffled by the material of his clothing. He felt her hands close around the edges of his coat between their chests and he wondered momentarily whether she could perhaps feel how quickly his heart was beating.

He had not at all expected this, but it seemed, as he stood there with his arms around her, leaned only slightly, it seemed this simple, human contact was all Jasmine had needed or wanted. She cried openly against his shirt, her sobs wracking her entire body within his embrace. His heart gave a pang, his throat tightened though he gave no outward indication of it at all. It seemed he'd had a bad night too.

Despite every effort to hold up his facade, his shoulders relaxed, his embrace deepened and Jasmine allowed herself to be enveloped by it, fitting right up against him. His chin rested on the top of her head and he could not help but roll his eyes at himself, at his pity toward her, at the true sadness he felt for her, at how much it hurt him to see, hear and now _feel_ her cry.

Jasmine quieted quickly once the level of genuineness in his hug increased and after a few moments, she lifted her head, took a quick step away from him and began wiping her eyes hastily on the cuffs of her coat. If she had been at all embarrassed by it, Severus was positive if was nothing to the way he was feeling. If he could have Apparated at that very moment without her notice, he would have done it immediately. But he forced himself to stand his ground, too tired and mentally, emotionally drained to pretend her sorrow had not affected him to point of offering her actual comfort.

He shrugged at her lifeless, useless car as he straightened his shoulders. The corner of his lips curled into a smirk. "I suppose you'll need a ride home, then?" he asked in what he felt was a very easy transition from an awkward moment.

"Oh, no, that's okay," she answered in a forcefully airy voice, shaking her head as she pressed the cold backs of her hands to her pink cheeks. Severus' smirk dissolved just as quickly as it had appeared. Jasmine was attempting to look nonchalant about the fact that it was after four in the morning, she was freezing and her car was completely dead. She motioned toward the opposite side of the garage.

"I can go down to the bus stop. I think there's one that comes at around-..." Her voice trailed off as Severus' eyebrows arched more and more sharply until he finally rolled his eyes.

"Don't be stupid," he drawled a bit more lazily than he had intended.

But he did not continue. He knew Jasmine would understand that she was free to make whatever decision she liked, that he was not forcing her to take any favors from him. If she wanted to wait for the bus for an hour by herself in the cold and dark, she was welcome to do so.

For a long moment, she stood there staring back at him, looking years older than when he had last seen her, exhausted to her core, until she nodded at long last. It was a very defeated sort of movement and her eyes instantly filled with a fresh bout of tears but Severus was already moving toward her, to guide her out into the lane from between the cars.

As they walked toward his car a few spaces away, he noticed her shiver in the corner of his vision. He gave another shake of his head and a smirk tugged at his lips.

Silly, stubborn thing.

A/N: A VERY long chapter! But this one was important and needed a ton of attention. School is in full swing and I'm taking what little time I have extra to keep at this story! Because it's about to get so fun! I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and are excited for another! Leave a review if you'd like to or feel free to private message me if you're shy! = ) - QoM


	13. A Hard Day's Night

Severus drove and Jasmine cried.

She was not dramatic or loud about it, but quite the opposite- merely sniffling every now and again while tears streamed steadily down her cheeks. Occasionally, from the corner of his eye, Severus could see her shoulders bobbing gently with silent sobs. He wished he could tell her that he understood, that he was there with her. But he could not. Perhaps his silence said enough and would suffice.

And onward he drove, in total silence, absolutely no idea where he was supposed to be going. Out of habit, he had made a right turn out of the hospital parking garage and continued in the direction of his own route home; he had felt at the time that he would rather not ask for her address just yet. Not until she had settled just a bit and he could feel less...guilty or rude; he had not yet decided what he was currently feeling.

However, one thing was certain; he was no longer a stranger on the outside looking in. He was _involved_ now in her life. He had overstepped the boundaries of work versus personal life, in an almost literal sense, and he felt it as a shift, an infinitesimal shift in the tectonic plates of their dynamic. He wondered if Jasmine would feel that change too, once she had the time and mental energy to dissect the past twenty-four hours.

Or perhaps it was simply him overthinking.

He kept driving, aimlessly, passing his apartment complex but with no thought of the king sized bed there awaiting him. There was something rather hypnotic and relaxing about the feeling of the moving car, the gentle bounce of the suspension, the silence, the warmth of the seats. It seemed Jasmine had quieted some as she eventually let out a low, slow breath, using both backs of her hands to wipe her cheeks. He noticed her shake her head.

"I'm so sorry..." Her voice was very soft, somewhat raspy with overuse and a bit thick with residual tears.

Severus' eyebrows arched sharply but he did not look at her, thankful for the road as an excuse not to do so. "Whatever for?" he asked sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

Jasmine missed it.

He felt like a right dick as she answered him in earnest, "Jeremy- at the hospital. I had a feeling he might come but I never meant for anyone to-"

Severus interrupted, adjusting his loose grip on the steering wheel idly, swapping hands entirely. "I merely saw that you needed help, so I intervened,"

He paused, finally glancing over at her. His stomach clenched; somehow it had only just then reached him that Jasmine, the nurse from work, was in his car. He looked back to the road, clearing his throat. "That is the extent of what happened as far as I'm concerned. And you certainly have nothing to be sorry for."

Beside him, she nodded again, lowering her head to train her tired gaze on her fingers where they lay interlocked in her lap. There was a brief pause before she inhaled to speak. "I just never meant for _you_ to get involved." Her voice was very low, almost timid-sounding.

Severus blinked slowly, exhaling through his nose as he let the back of his head come to rest on the headrest of his seat. "Neither did I," he admitted gently.

Another stretch of odd silence passed before Jasmine sat up in the passenger seat, peering through the windshield and the defrosted side window. "Uh...where are we?" she asked, turning her head to look up at him hastily.

He shrugged. "You were upset. I didn't want to ask you-" he began to explain, but Jasmine was already trying not to laugh; he could almost palpably feel it radiating from her.

"So, you just...started driving in a random direction?" she asked, her voice finally betraying a hint of a giggle. Severus felt his insides shrivel slightly and he shrugged again, attempting to maintain a stoic expression.

"I didn't want to interrupt."He opted to word it this way versus how he really felt, which was rude and intrusive, guilty somehow for every tear that fell, almost ashamed. How could he explain to her the level of sadness he felt for her situation, how badly he had felt about his own night? How could he ever admit to her that he had been rather incapable of asking her much of anything at the time, much less focus enough to ask where she lived?

He had expected Jasmine to burst into laughter at his silly chivalry but felt relief wash over him as she smiled silently, shook her head and turned her gaze to stare up at him. "Which way did you turn out of the hospital onto Kensington?" she asked, her grin expanding. Severus' eyes narrowed on the road before them; he felt as though she already knew he had gone the wrong way.

In lieu of answering, he took his eyes off the road to look over at her, to make eye contact for only the briefest of moments, while she did the same. Her features were not overly visible in the darkness of his car, but a white, shiny tooth behind a pink lip caught a glint of light and her eyes twinkled. Her expression of mingled apology and amusement rendered any verbal confirmation quite unnecessary. Severus rolled his eyes as he put the left blinker on to pull into the next available turn lane, make a U-turn and begin the drive in the opposite direction.

Silence descended again as they passed the same buildings and structures they had just seen but in reverse, and Severus was in the process of wondering what on earth they were supposed to talk about for the next twenty or so minutes when Jasmine reached down to put her hand on the seat beneath her leg.

"Are these seats heated?" she asked.

Again, he did not look over but could feel her eyes on the side of his face. He glanced down at the seat heating controls on the center console between them.

"They are," he answered. "I turned them on when we got in. You seemed frozen," The car stopped at a red light and he forced himself to look at her. "If it's too warm now-" he went on but Jasmine was still smiling placidly up at him, though only for a moment or two before looking away.

"No, it's awesome! It's just-" She paused, letting out a short laugh and giving another small shake of her head. "-really thoughtful. Thank you."

Severus was almost entirely certain that was not what she had originally intended to say.

After traveling the long stretch of highway once more and passing the hospital yet again, Jasmine's directions took them outside the limits of the packed city, out into the less crowded, more suburban areas around it. The time was fast approaching half past five in the morning but the sky was still black with night as winter stretched the darkness. The sun was not due for another hour or so.

As the car came to a stop at a red, left-turn light and the clicking of the blinker once again broke the silence, Jasmine's voice joined it. "Do you have any music?" she asked suddenly, so abruptly that Severus blinked in surprise. When he hesitated, she added,"Any kind of music?"

Ah.

She was seeking a distraction. She did not care what type of music he had, she only wanted something to drown out her own mind and give her something to think about aside from the horrible night she had experienced. His stomach fell in disappointment with himself.

How dearly he wished he could think of something clever to talk about, something engaging to provide the distraction she was craving. He wished he could make some joke to provoke her silly laugh or bring up a topic unrelated to their profession to discuss. But he simply did not know how. He was already a bit anxious about driving with someone else in the car, much less starting a conversation with them. This was the consequence of acting on impulse and not considering the ramifications of inviting this woman to ride alone with him in his car. He had not considered his own social ineptitude. Despite this, his expression betrayed none of his discomfort and he replied casually.

"Aside from the standard radio, no, I'm afraid I don't," he answered. "I usually prefer to think while I'm driving."

Perhaps his tone had not been as casual as he'd intended or Jasmine had simply taken it the wrong way, as she seemed to shrink back into the seat, looking as though she wished she had not asked.

"Oh, sorry," she apologized hastily. "I'll be quiet."

At this, Severus could not stop himself from letting out a short, genuine, but tired laugh. He shook his head as the light finally turned green and the car began to move.

"I've got no energy left for thinking about much of anything," he explained, forcefully ignoring the smile that spread across Jasmine's face at his laugh. "Put on whatever you'd like," he added with a straight expression, reaching out a finger for the button to turn on the radio.

She fiddled with it for only a moment, short snatches of song or voices coming quietly through the car speakers, before she landed on a station she had apparently already known about. A woman's warbled voice came through; an old song, perhaps from the 50's or earlier. He did not recognize it, as he rarely listened to music, Muggle or otherwise, but the voice was comforting, warm, muffled by the age of the recording. And the effect it had on Jasmine was instantaneous.

She exhaled heavily, melting comfortably into the passenger seat, her eyes sliding closed. Everything about her seemed to relax, and in that moment, her world appeared right again. Even in his own chest, Severus felt a knot of tension begin to unwind and he seemed to regain the ability to take a true, deep breath. Why hadn't he thought to turn the radio on at the very beginning of the ride home-turned-journey?

As the song ended, Jasmine sighed. "I love that song," she commented somewhat dreamily. "Her voice is so nice."

Severus had no idea who 'her' was, but he had not disliked the song. "Who was it?" he asked out of genuine curiosity, as another song began to play.

"Billie Holiday," Jasmine replied patiently, in the same soft, far-away tone. "Her music was first popular here in the late thirties and forties, during World War Two."

Severus' eyebrow arched. He was unsure which thing he found most attractive about what she had just said: the fact that she had not questioned why he had not known the artist, or her explanation and knowledge of it. All of the above perhaps.

He smirked, the knot in his chest loosening further. "So, you prefer older music?" he asked, his voice gaining a note of confidence he had not felt since starting the car almost an hour prior. This was getting easier. It seemed all he had to do was ask questions and let her do the talking.

Beside him, Jasmine nodded.

"Mostly," she replied with a non-committal shrug. "I listen to new stuff too, but I think old music is the most comforting," She ended her sentence in a way that indicated she had cut herself short, but she did not hesitate for long. "I think my favorite of all time is anything by The Beatles and other music from that time period."

Unable to help himself, Severus stopped the car at yet another red light and arranged his features to appear confused. "The Beatles?" he asked, squinting slightly in mock contemplation as he stared through the windshield. "Who are they?"

It took everything in him not to grin at the way Jasmine's face morphed from a content smile to a look of concern akin to that of one she would wear had he spontaneously burst into flames. He played along, adding an innocent shrug for effect.

"Wha-...The Beatles?" she repeated incredulously. "The _Beatles?_ The most famous _British_ band of all time? Are you-...you can't be-" Finally, as she stammered, lost for words, Severus broke a tiny smirk and Jasmine rolled her eyes, swatting him on his aching, bullet-grazed, right arm.

He hid the dull pinch of pain but recoiled slightly, allowing one laugh to escape. "Of course I know who The Beatles are," he grumbled, grinning. "They were my mum's favorite as well. She'd listen to them all day while my father was at work."

Severus immediately realized he had said too much and wished he could snatch his spoken words right out of her ears as Jasmine turned her head quickly to look at him in surprise.

"While he was at work?" she repeated him in question form. "Did he not like them or something?"

Severus raised and lowered one shoulder, his mind spinning to comprise an answer that would not sound odd. "I suppose not. I was fairly young when they were most popular so I don't remember exactly why he had such a problem with them."

Jasmine spoke again almost the moment he had ended his sentence, apparently eager to ask as much as she could while he was feeling talkative. She could likely feel her window of opportunity closing as every instinct within Severus told him to shut up, shut up, shut UP.

"When were you born?" she asked. Severus hesitated.

She was venturing tremendously close to his proverbial 'personal line' and he briefly wondered how rude it would be to refuse any further questions. But then again, only a few hours earlier, he had hurled himself past _her '_ personal line' without even a thought. She had every right to ask him whatever that night as far as he was concerned. Within reason, _obviously._

"What year?" She narrowed her question down as if to compromise on only a half-answer.

"I was born the ninth of January, nineteen-sixty," he stated in one breath, then listened to Jasmine doing quick math in her head. "I'm forty-two," he added, smirking.

"Wow," she replied.

Severus' small grin disappeared.

 _Wow?_ He didn't think he was _that_ old... Or was she simply surprised he had shared that information?

"You don't look forty-two at all," she added genuinely, her soft smile strengthening as she held her thumb out to indicate that he should turn right at the next street.

Severus grunted a laugh, flipping on the right turn indicator. "I _feel_ forty-two, whatever I look like," he commented offhandedly, distracted by the relief he felt roll over him; she did not think he was old. Though he was not really sure why that mattered to him.

They had finally reached a stretch of suburban neighborhoods, the individual streets dark as they lay outside of the city limits; no streetlights and no sidewalks. The houses seemed nice enough from what he could see of them in passing, in the dark, and he felt a tingle of surprise that Jasmine had already been able to purchase or rent a home of this size so quickly after moving to Boston from California. He knew nurses made good money but not _that_ good...

"It'll be down the street on the next left," Jasmine instructed from the passenger seat, sitting up straight from where she had been leaned comfortably sideways against the door, suddenly on alert. Severus was not sure what was going through her mind and he dare not attempt to find out, but the nervous, anxious energy she was emitting made the hairs on his neck stand up.

Ignoring this for the moment, Severus made the left turn she had indicated, onto an even darker stretch of street, lined on one side by what appeared to be a deep embankment and houses on the other. He slowed the car a bit, feeling the tension rise even higher until Jasmine leaned forward, squinted, then finally, audibly exhaled a breath she had been holding.

"Sorry," she breathed, as though she could tell what her sudden anxiety had done to his already frayed nerves. "I was kinda afraid he would be here..."

Severus felt a very deep part of himself harden over like compacted steel as pride flowed through his veins. "No, he wouldn't be," he said in a clear voice.

Jasmine gave a skeptical laugh. "It's that next one down, with the little flag by the mailbox," she said quickly, but then continued, "And you don't know Jeremy. He could have found-"

Unable to help himself, unable to take one more moment of her worrying about this worthless piece of garbage from her past, Severus interrupted. "I told him to leave and never come back here." His hands gave the wheel a bit of an aggressive jerk as he turned left into Jasmine's dark driveway. "He won't be bothering you again."

He put the car in park, turned off the headlights and let the tires bounce slightly as he took his foot off the brake. He turned his head to look at her. Jasmine seemed to diminish a bit under his gaze but she raised her eyebrows, her head cocking to one side.

"And you're so sure of that because...?"

Severus felt his stomach drop but he did not allow his expression to change as he pulled his eyes away to stare through the windshield at the shadowed garage door. He'd have to tell her. She would worry if she thought there was a chance Jeremy might find her there. It would keep her up at night, she would check the locks twice and glance through the window at every chance. He knew she was a strong woman but she had shown him something new that night, something he did not like to see her experience: fear. He could not and would not let her go on worrying about her fool of an ex-fiance.

He took a deep breath and exhaled. "I might have suggested that I could kill him and get away with it," He paused, watching Jasmine's jaw fall open from his periphery. "And that I wouldn't hesitate were he to return."

The last bit may not have been one-hundred percent accurate to what he had really said in that moment, under the screams of the car alarm, but he had certainly meant that much. Quite aside from that, how else could he explain her absolutely fuming ex-fiance leaving like a subdued, wounded puppy when confronted? _Without_ admitting he had used Magic?

Several tense moments passed, wherein once again Severus wished he could take all of his words back, before Jasmine let a low whistle pass between her lips, her eyebrows arched. She finally gave a small laugh and he relaxed a bit, allowing a smirk of his own. Perhaps she thought he was joking.

"Well, no wonder he took off like that!" she replied, her tone of voice brighter than it had been for most of the night. "I wondered what you said to him to make him just...leave. I thought for sure he was about to fight you," She paused to laugh again. "But I probably would've booked it too if you'd said that to me."

At long last, it was Severus' turn to laugh. It came in the form of a grunt as he rubbed his left eye with a knuckle from his left hand. "No, you wouldn't have," he replied, his voice gravelly with overuse, his vocal cords reaching their limits. "You would've asked me to explain how I'd do it." His lips curved upward behind his hand into a smirk strong enough to show teeth when Jasmine gave a hearty, genuine laugh. She was sounding more and more like herself the longer they sat there.

"Honestly, yeah," she giggled. "You're probably right. That, and I'm not afraid of you anymore."

Severus' grin disappeared and he looked over to frown at her. " _'Anymore'_ suggesting that at one point, you _were_ afraid of me?" he asked, in a mock-offended sort of voice.

Jasmine lifted her shoulders in a shrug and let them drop. "Well, you _are_ kind of scary," she said gently, as though he had not heard it before. "The nurses said you were terrible and Linda...she also kinda said that you were on the not-so-friendly side. But once I met you..." She paused again to shrug. "You're not so bad. They exaggerated."

Severus grunted another laugh.

No, they didn't.

More to turn the topic off of himself and his openly preferential treatment of Jasmine at work than anything, Severus turned slightly in the driver's seat to look at her, resting his back against the door. "Well, I'm afraid of you," he stated baldly, his features flat, only raising his eyebrows when she gasped.

"Of me?" she asked, deeply concerned that he had been serious. Perhaps it was theexpression, or lack thereof, on his face... " _Why?"_

"Your aunt is my boss-"

The moment the words left his mouth, the change in Jasmine's expression immediately alerted him that he had said the wrong thing. He continued hastily, wanting nothing but to bring her smile back. It had fallen from her face so rapidly and he had only just gotten it back to where it belonged. "You're also annoyingly knowledgeable for a nurse. I'm afraid you might show me up one of these days."

Bingo.

She smiled, turning her eyes to gaze dreamily through the windshield to the garage door, which was slightly more visible than it had been when the car had stopped.

"One of these days, Doc," she replied quietly.

Silence descended again but it was not uncomfortable. It was peaceful, broken only by the soft crooning from the radio, the rustle of Jasmine's coat as she moved to itch her nose, the gentle rumbling of the idling car. Severus watched her from the driver's 'corner' where he had gotten comfortable, fighting against the thing he so needed to tell her, the thing she deserved to hear. It had gnawed at him all night and he wanted it off of his chest.

"I, er-"

It was testament to how anxious he was about saying this that he stammered...something he _never_ did. He continued as though it had not happened. "I feel I owe you an apology," He paused before continuing, knowing Jasmine would interject with-

"Why? What?" she asked urgently. "No, you don't, for what?"

She asked all of these things very quickly and out of order, improperly composed. As amusing as he found this habit of hers when she was flustered, he sighed and used one hand to comb the front bits of his hair away from his face.

"I got to work in a towering temper," he admitted, feeling as though, in that moment, he could speak freely. He was unsure what it was about it; the setting, the fact that it was still fairly dark, he was exhausted, she really need to hear it, he _meant_ it...Something was encouraging him to continue and spare no thought to how difficult or embarrassing it was. "I was in a horrible mood when I got there and I took it out on you," He paused, nodding his head in her direction. which you didn't deserve, especially tonight. So I'm sorry." He concluded his statement a bit curtly.

For what felt like a lifetime, Jasmine merely observed him from the other side of the car, an odd, half-grin on her face as she too turned to sit slightly sideways with her back against the door. She brought one short leg up to sit half Indian-style in the seat and she licked her lips slowly, thinking of exactly how to phrase her response. He could practically hear it forming in her mind.

"It's funny you say that because I honestly didn't even notice," she admitted, sliding her hands into the pockets of her coat. "I thought it was business as usual for you until _he_ showed up. But...thank you for apologizing. The whole night was just-"

She continued and finished her sentence but Severus had stopped listening to mentally kick himself. He had been so downright rude to her all night and she had not noticed? He had snapped at her on at least two or three occasions, including the very first words he spoke to her that night, and she had not noticed a difference in him? A slight frown furrowed his brow. Was he always that rude to her? Had he perhaps always spoken that way with her but was only just now beginning to notice it or feel even remotely guilty for it? He scratched idly at an itch on his stubbly cheek, feeling like an utter piece of shit.

"Honestly, Dr. Prince, it's-"

"Severus."

Jasmine stopped mid-word, her eyes slightly wide as she met his across the shadowy, but steadily lightening interior of his car. "What?"she asked hesitantly, although he knew she had heard him perfectly well.

"My name is Severus," he repeated, smirking as Jasmine continued to stare at him blankly. "We're sitting in my car in your driveway. I think we can drop the formalities."

The most adorable giggle, then the gentlest voice.

"Severus..."

She'd said it testingly, to see how it would feel to say it, to call him by that name, to feel the way her lips needed to move to form it. Her grin was so bright, he could barely look at her straight on and yet his arms were coated in goosebumps all the way up to his shoulders and across his chest, even beneath his warm, thermal, long-sleeved shirt.

Fortunately, it seemed Jasmine noticed none of this, as she went on, giving a short laugh, her ponytail spilling over her shoulder. "It sounds stupid but it's easy to forget that you doctors have first names. We get so used to last names and titles that we forget you're normal people too."

Severus cleared his throat, crossing his arms across his chest.

Right.

Normal _._

"But I don't think I've ever been friends enough with a doctor to use their first name before," she continued somewhat offhandedly, though Severus looked over quickly from where he had been watching a small patch of condensation forming on the inside of his windshield.

...Friends?

Is that what he had felt earlier? That shift in their plates, the dynamic of their thus far strictly work relationship? More importantly...was he alright with that?

He decided that he was.

"Well, don't get too used to it," he said, suddenly stern. "It's still 'Dr. Prince, Overlord and Supreme Ruler of Emergency Medicine' at work, that's clear?" He smirked when Jasmine finally released one of her ridiculous belly laughs and found that he liked the sound of it even more without the din of alarms, beeping, intercoms and other people behind it.

"Oh, yeah, of course," she replied with a quick, stiff nod of her head, still trembling with giggles. "Business as usual."

At that moment, several things happened at the same time: a very bright, very unexpected porch light flipped on, Severus jumped in surprise, Jasmine gasped and the front door to the shadowy house opened to reveal a short, frizzy, gray-haired woman clutching a bathrobe about herself. Severus swore and slid as far down into his seat as his long legs would allow him, to where only the top of his head was visible above the dashboard.

"You _live_ with her? _"_ he asked in a coarse whisper, as though Sinclair could hear them through the car door and across at least fifteen feet of front yard.

Jasmine's eyes were as big as saucers as she unbuckled her seat belt and gathered her keys and phone into her hands. "I'm so sorry!" she whispered back frantically. "I don't know what she's doing up so early!"

"Oh, you're definitely fired..." he grumbled, pulling himself slowly into a normal position by use of his hands on the steering wheel.

Jasmine laughed once more and swung open the passenger door, allowing a gust of cold air into the car. She moved to the edge of the seat to get out, but hesitated and looked back at him, biting her bottom lip. As she did when she wasn't sure how to say something.

She took a quick breath before speaking. "I don't know how to thank you...for everything, Severus. I mean...it-"

A shiver that was not entirely down to the frigid air streaming into his car forced him to fold his arms across his chest. "Well, how about you work on it and get back to me later then?" He nodded his head toward the open door. "You're letting the warm out." His tone had been curt but he could not stop himself from grinning as Jasmine's expression fell and she got out of the car with a huff.

"Go eat something and get some sleep," she instructed in her own playfully stern voice. "You're looking a little 'forty-three', old man."

And with that, she shut the door and walked briskly along the path to the front door, though Severus did not linger one moment to watch her into the house. He may have downplayed it before for the sake of her feelings but he obviously would rather that his boss, her aunt and _roommate_ apparently, not know that he had been the one to bring her home when her car failed. He knew that questions led to more questions and eventually answers, and he did not think it wise for Sinclair to find out he had gotten rough with Jasmine's ex in the parking garage while on hospital time and property.

But none of that mattered yet. His brain was in an almost dream-like state as he raced the sun home, hoping to be there before it rose completely. The first glowing rays and patterns had begun to appear on the horizon and he dazedly watched the droplets of condensation shimmering with it on his windshield as he sat at a red light. There were certainly more cars on the road now than there had been two hours ago, as more people woke up and got about their days, going to work, fresh after a good night's sleep. Now that Jasmine had been delivered and Severus was alone, the weight of his night fell upon him with such force that he could have easily put his car into park right there at that intersection and slept for twelve hours.

It felt as though it had been several years since he had last seen the inside of his apartment and he groaned in both exhaustion and content as he stepped into it twenty minutes later. Despite the hour, spending time one-on-one with Jasmine _outside_ of the hospital, while unexpected, had been nice, he had to admit. She was funny and relatively easy to talk to, just as she was at the hospital on a normal day. But it had worn him out, if possible, even further to the point where he merely walked back to his bedroom, Vanished his clothing with a wave of a hand and got into the bed. The Warming Charm he had added a few nights ago was still in effect and his bare skin erupted into goosebumps as he pulled the impossibly soft, Magically heated sheets and down comforter up to his shoulder.

As sleep began to roll over him like rain clouds, he hastily pulled the band from his knot of hair and growled comfortably into his pillow. He so desperately hoped Jasmine was getting some sleep as well and was not being questioned by her ridiculous aunt, about what had happened at the hospital, about why Dr. Prince was in her driveway at nearly seven in the morning, about where her car was. The poor thing needed to sleep more than anything, for her body to recover, for her mind to take a break, to shut everything down for a while and recharge...Basically everything a properly brewed, dreamless Sleeping Potion could provide her with. Perhaps if he could figure out how to Transfigure the Potion into a capsule or tablet form...And this was the last thing he remembered before sleep took him.

A/N: I'm back! Sorry for the short chapter but finals are coming up and I've been sitting on this one trying to decide whether to split this chapter and the next chapter up and I decided I'm going to! I have final exams but the semester is done December 4th! So the whole month of December I will be CRACKING ALONG on this story. So thank you SOOOOOOO much for the kind reviews and comments and I sincerely hope you enjoyed this little chapter! -QoM


	14. Born In Winter

Severus felt it was rather fortunate that he had the day off following he and Jasmine's early morning ride home and was not on call duty either. He slept through the entire day without disturbance and had only woken as the sun was setting. For a while, he lay there dazedly on his side, half-awake, watching the silhouette of the sun through the sheen curtain across the window, surprised that he could see it at all. His black-out curtains were normally shut during the days when he was sleeping after a late night but presently stood clear open, allowing full strength evening glow into his bedroom. He had apparently been _that_ tired.

He pushed his face into his pillow with a deep growl of a groan, and was simultaneously made aware of the presence of a massive knot in the side of his hair. Passing over this, he wondered vaguely if Jasmine had managed to have her ruined car towed from the garage at some point that day. This led him to wonder whether she would purchase a new one or attempt to fix the old one, which led him to wonder what she was doing at that very moment. He huffed a breath of air, forced himself to roll onto his back with his arms out to both sides and blew a long strand of hair away from his face.

Going back to sleep was tempting but his stomach was growling like a caged animal. And besides, he had some things in the lab that needed tending to-

 _BZZ-BZZ...BZZ-BZZ..._

Severus' eyes shot open and his empty stomach dropped.

Oh, no... Like hell Oakes was calling him on his night off, no _fucking way..._

He continued to listen, but the buzzing had stopped.

His eyebrows arched and he finally lifted his head to look at the device on the nightstand. It had gone dark and quiet. With a roll of his eyes, he turned onto his side, propped himself up onto his elbow, and took the phone into his hand. The screen illuminated to show '1 Picture Message from -' followed by a number his phone did not recognize, with an area code uncommon to Boston. Confused and slightly apprehensive as to what the picture could contain, he pressed the screen with his thumb.

Up popped a picture of Jasmine, smiling brightly with one hand giving a thumbs up, the other clutching a set of keys. A shiny, slate-gray car of some kind stood next to her, in front of what he now understood to be Linda Sinclair's home. Despite this last unfortunate bit of information, he could not stop the grin that tugged upward on the corner of his lips.

' _Bought a new car today all by myself! Thanks for the ride home this morning! Also, I got your personal number from Oakes, so blame him.'_

Severus forewent a reply and merely replaced the phone on the nightstand, but his grin went with him as he ventured to the kitchen to find something edible.

…...

As Jasmine pulled her new car carefully into a spot in the parking garage at Boston General, she could not help herself from glancing around for the back of Dr. Prince's...Severus' (...?) black BMW, hoping she would get the chance to show it to him. Her head swiveled to glance up and down the row on either side of her as the car came to a stop in perfect alignment. But after a quick scan, it came as no surprise to her that he had not yet arrived, as she was nearly an hour early. Truthfully, she had just been too excited to drive it again to wait any longer to leave for work. So she began to look for other familiar cars, such as those belonging to Kelly and Rebecca, David...Again, no one.

With a sigh, she rolled her eyes at herself. That's what she got for being so early and wanting to show off. However, as she parked and checked her spacing once more in the side mirrors, the low, approaching rumble of an engine that put hers to shame caught her attention. A black car rolled past and her stomach did a weird, jiggling flop sort of thing.

Dr. Prince _was_ early.

She was unsure why, but her heart was suddenly pounding inside her chest. Would he be mad about the text and picture? Had she overstepped their 'friendship' boundary too quickly? Would he brush her off and pretend as though they hadn't had a generally pleasant time talking after work that crazy night? Jasmine snorted in preemptive irritation. That actually seemed exactly like the thing he would do; pretend it had never happened. He would be snapping at her and ignoring her again in no time.

After taking a deep breath and exhaling forcefully, Jasmine got out of the car and allowed the biting evening air to fill her lungs and to her annoyance, blow her loose, wild hair all over the place. She attempted to capture it quickly into a ponytail but failed miserably as several curls escaped her two-handed grasp.

Dr. Prince was approaching, stethoscope and hands in the pockets of his coat. There was more his black hair pulled back than usual and the dark green scarf loose against his upper chest gave his jawline an edge that could put most marble statues to shame. His eyebrows were arched, his expression unreadable, detached as always. Jasmine somehow held her breath and spoke at the same time.

"Have a nice night off?" She asked, shivering slightly as she clutched her coat against herself with her arms folded across her chest. Boston cold was much different than California cold and she had not gotten used to it yet.

Severus (she decided she could call him that in her head) drew near enough that she could fall into step beside him, walking at a slow trot to keep up with his long stride.

"I did," he replied deeply. "And you?" he then asked politely, glancing down at her past his shoulder, smirking as she tried to wordlessly explain to him, using only her eyes, how much she would like it if he would just ask-

"Enjoying your new ca-"

"YES!" she nearly shouted, jumping an entire step ahead and having to turn slightly to see him as they walked toward the staff entrance. "I love it! It drives so smooth and the brakes are so new and..." She sighed, deciding to turn it down a few notches before he had to endure this for an entire shift. Her shoulders rose and dropped in a shrug. "It's just nice to have something new that's all mine."

At the entrance to the hospital, she stopped to press her badge to the sensor and Severus caught up with her, inhaling deeply and exhaling a cloudy breath of condensation as she looked up at him.

"I'm pleased to hear it," he replied, though it could not have been more obvious that he had stopped listening. Her gleeful expression fell into a smirk and she rolled her eyes as the door beeped to allow them entry.

"Sorry if my message last night was annoying."

The words exploded out of her almost the moment they had stepped inside the slightly warmer confines of the hospital, where both paused to remove their coats. It left her so unexpectedly and with such force that she had to fight hard not to clap her hands over her own mouth. Maybe her brain figured bringing it up right away might help her feel less awkward about it, less guilty. She had immediately regretted sending the message the moment it had been delivered but there was no taking it back. So she might as well put it out there.

To her shock, Dr. Prince shrugged, unwinding the scarf from around his neck, distinctly _not_ looking at her. "Unexpected but not unwelcome. I was glad to know you found something to replace your loss," he replied in his usual rich tone, but with a touch of something less tight, something more at ease. "Although that reminds me-" He continued. They had stopped at the entrance to the men's locker room. Jasmine frowned. "I need to go suspend Dr. Oakes without pay for giving you my number. If you'll excuse me."

With that, he disappeared into the locker room, leaving Jasmine to laugh with both relief and even more relief. Not only was Dr. Prince in a surprisingly good mood, but she also knew Dr. Oakes would not actually be suspended and he had not found her text message obnoxious. Exactly what she had been hoping for. Maybe, just maybe, his mood would last through the evening and into the night.

…...

After encountering her so abruptly and immediately in the parking garage, Severus found that working with Jasmine was perhaps going to go much more smoothly than he had anticipated. He had been anxious that the thought of a friendship or something like it between them would cause him to shut down on instinct, turn the lights out on the idea and return to his usual, stoic, impassive self; isolated. But something about the way she had beamed at him as he approached, the casual nature with which she greeted him, that warm calmness about her made it impossible for him to even consider outright rudeness or reverting back to how it had been. He found her face both familiar and welcome now. There were few others in his life to have earned this place in his mind.

As he entered the back nurses' station to take up his usual seat at the far computer, Severus spared Dr. Oakes a glance, who looked up just in time to push his chair backward to block his path. The wing of chair back caught Severus in his upper inner thigh, very close to a highly sensitive area of his anatomy. With a hiss of pain and without thinking, he put his black tennis shoe on the bottom rung of the rolling chair and attempted to shove it away from him. But Oakes resisted with his own leg and held up one finger, his eyebrows raised, boyish features attempting to look stern.

The two grown men, _doctors,_ had a momentary battle of 'who's stronger' before the younger spoke.

"Try me tonight and I _will_ fight you, Prince," Oakes warned.

Severus rolled his eyes.

"Noted," he replied dryly, finally removing his foot from the chair to turn and round the long edge of the counter to the other, far entrance to the nurses' station. He took a seat at his usual place and cast a sideways glare at Mark as he pulled several charts toward him from a referral pile. "Although you did give Jasmine my number so-"

"Yeah," Oakes interrupted without looking over. "I did. And I told her you _love_ texting."

Severus blinked slowly before continuing his previous statement. "-so we can call it even then."

There was silence from the other end of the desk, which Severus took as a nonverbal agreement. He turned his attention to the computer, gave the mouse a nudge, and nearly jumped in surprise as the screen suddenly blazed bright red. Clashing, horrific, green letters danced across it to read:

 _"Holiday Party! December 18_ _th_ _!"_

This was all Severus needed to see before he groaned, rubbing his eyes with two knuckles. He had nearly forgotten it was the first of December. Oakes seemed to understand what the noise had been about as he spoke without looking over.

"Yeah, that pops up whenever you check in now," he explained grumpily. "Sinclair sent a mass email this morning too, just in case the bright red fucking-"

Severus stopped listening and clicked past the alert to the incoming case list. The holiday party meant nothing to him. Oakes would whine and complain about it until the day of the event, then 'suddenly' decide he felt like going. Meanwhile, Severus did not care about it in the slightest. He was not required to go and had never had the motivation to even remotely _want_ to go, so why worry about it?

He hated the month of December as a whole, simply because of how badly it made him miss Hogwarts around that time of year. Christmas had never meant much to him, even as a boy, but something about the castle all dressed up and the grounds covered in that powdery white blanket was comforting to him on a very base level, something that warmed him down to his deepest core. Now, December was simply another month, Christmas just another day. He honestly could not remember the last time someone had wished him a happy one. Perhaps Albus had been the last.

He had expected to see the little paper notices all over the staff white boards but certainly not a giant alert in his face once a day.

Sinclair.

Fortunately, it seemed Jasmine wanted to get a jump on the shift, as he looked up to find her hurtling toward him, chart in hand. It was not entirely rational, but Severus sometimes felt that the quicker he started a shift, the faster it ended. It was encouraging that Jasmine seemed to feel the same way. Once within arm's reach, she set the chart down on the desk and immediately began to speak.

"Dr. Prince, I have a sixty-seven year old, African American male presenting with severe chest pain, shortness of breath-" At that point, she paused, looked up from the chart and flushed pink. "Oh, sorry!" She laughed, closing the chart, glancing awkwardly from Severus to Oakes and back again. "I forgot we're not technically on yet..." Her sentence ended on a very open sort of note and Severus' eyes narrowed into slits. He squinted at her for several moments before rolling his eyes and rising from his chair.

She knew damn well he would be unable to resist an urgent, interesting case no matter how early. Though he had to admit the care she put into acting apologetic was nicely done, almost believable.

Clever girl.

"Oh, well done," he drawled, tucking his stethoscope into his back pocket and joining her on the other side of the counter. "Chest pain began when?" He asked, taking the chart from her to flip it open.

Jasmine began walking alongside him, grinning in an annoyingly self-satisfied sort of way. "About noon," she replied casually.

Severus looked down at her in surprise so quickly that several pieces of his hair were pulled loose from his usual knot. "Since _noon-"_ he repeated incredulously but Jasmine cut across him.

"I know."

And not another word passed between them before they came to face the exam room door. Bristling with annoyance, Severus stepped in first, followed closely by Jasmine. He began speaking immediately, barely pausing to take in the patient before him nor introduce himself.

"Sir, may I ask-" He paused to drop the floppy chart down onto the rolling stand at the foot of the bed. "-why you have been experiencing chest pain and difficulty breathing for near on six hours now and are only just arriving in my emergency room?"

Damn. A banger right out of the gate. Reign it in.

Severus braced for a reaction and even felt Jasmine stiffen where she stood a foot or so behind him. But when he had fully expected anger or offense at such a question, the older man shrugged sheepishly, scratching an itch on his upper arm. He felt his stomach fall to a region near his ankles.

"Well, I knew it was bad, y'know, but I had no ride. Ambulance rides are so expensive. And I tried calling my kids but..." The patient's voice trailed and he looked away, shrugging again with open hands. "So I finally just called 911. Figured they could-"

God damnit.

He would've gladly taken a patient complaint or even a direct punch in the face over that. Severus inhaled deeply in an effort to prevent himself from swearing aloud and cleared his throat instead, removing his stethoscope from his back pocket.

"Well, you're here now so tell me what happened," He said this as casually as he could both in order to begin the exam quickly and smooth over how blatantly rude he was without considering extenuating circumstances.

Unless he was mistaken, Jasmine appeared to be grinning just a bit as she jotted down notes.

And as predicted, upon leaving the exam room twenty minutes later, she fell into step beside him and held out the chart, her grin almost too much for her face to handle. She was pleased and had clearly given up trying to hide it.

"You totally deserved that," she said quietly, just loud enough for him to hear over the beeping of a respirator as they passed. Severus rolled his eyes as he snatched the thin folder from her hand and opened it to set it on the counter of the back nurses' station.

"Yes, I did," he agreed curtly, clicking his favorite silver pen to begin writing orders on the sheet. Though when Jasmine simply stood there smirking at him, trembling with righteous giggles, he finally groaned and shut his eyes, rubbing his face with one hand. "Shut up," he snarled, though she had said nothing. "Go page cardiology and run an ECG on our patient in atrial fibrillation, _please._ "

At the words 'atrial' and 'fibrillation', Jasmine gave a start and sped off in the direction of the main nurses' station, leaving Severus to finish his notes and prepare to refer the case. Had he more time, he could have easily pursued this case himself, as it really was only a matter of determining what caused the arrhythmia in the first place and correcting it via defibrillation or pace-maker. But a majority of his abilities in cardiology depended on his use of 'x-ray vision', Magic, and he simply could not risk it with Jasmine so close. She would ask him five-thousand questions, not many of which he could answer honestly. With another sigh, he continued his notes, anticipating the return of the electrocardiogram print out.

Most of the shift had passed since the older black gentleman had been moved to the cardiac floor and Severus found himself once again at the back nurses' station sitting across from Jasmine. She had taken up Oakes' seat while he was busy and was typing at the computer while he charted. It seemed she had gotten her satisfaction from his abrupt meeting with karma earlier as she had not brought it up since. Thankfully.

On the pretense of leaning back in the chair to stretch, he chanced a glance over at her, his gaze drawn to the ponytail at the back of her head like a magnet, a flash of memory showing him the places where he had removed the staples. Yes, he had been justified in his actions with Jeremy. No man on Earth, Muggle or otherwise, had the permission to physically harm a woman in a fit of anger.

His eyes snapped to the profile of her face as she sat diligently typing notes, for only an instant before he looked away, a little disgusted with himself. No. He could not let the wound in the back of her head be the first thing he thought of when he l her ooked at her. It would have to be something else; something better, happier.

Severus had just looked back to the stack of charts before him and clicked his pen when Rebecca the nurse, and annoyingly, Jasmine's closest work ally, went zooming past him to the opposite end of the desk. She slid her hands noisily on the counter for a few feet before stopping in front of Jasmine and leaning close to speak quietly.

"So, are you gonna meet him after work?" she asked.

Not quietly enough, it would seem.

It took quite a lot of restraint not to look over in surprise. Severus forced himself to read the last thing he had written in order to continue, though his curiosity had been triggered, his attention captured and something with tentacles seemed to have grown to existence inside his intestines. From his periphery, he noticed Jasmine cast a quick glance his way. She too then leaned forward and spoke even more quietly. He could not see it, but good money said she was likely ten different shades of crimson.

"I don't know yet!" Jasmine whispered back. "I told him it would be really early, like...five or so if he still wants to get coffee but-"

"Well, doesn't he get up that early anyway or something?" Rebecca asked. They had apparently already discussed this but felt the need to touch base on it right now.

Severus felt a fresh wave of impatience roll over him. Couldn't they go talk about it elsewhere? Who the hell was Jasmine supposed to be meeting anyway?

"Yeah, he works at seven I think but still, it just seems weird to meet that early in the morning-"

"-for a first date. It's cute," Rebecca argued.

Severus felt a bit like asking her to kindly shut the fuck-

" _Not_ a date," Jasmine corrected, her voice raised slightly from the whisper at which she had been speaking. "When we exchanged numbers on my birthday, he said ' _coffee'._ And I've made it pretty clear that _'coffee'_ is not a date to me."

At this, Severus felt a bit of relief but at the same time...exchanged numbers on her birthday? Why did that seem significant?

Then it hit him; that was the night they had gone to Harvey's after work. That was the night Jasmine had invited him to come along, with all the hope in the world that he would agree. And that was the night Severus had declined in order to drink alone at home, though with a heavy gut feeling that he _should_ have been at Harvey's. That was the night Potter had come to challenge him.

But this? This certainly could not be why he had felt that way. This could not have been the thing his instincts had been trying to help him prevent.

"Alright, well-" Rebecca was speaking at full volume again, pulling Severus from his reverie. "-I still think you should go. He seemed really nice and you _said_ you wanted more friends here so...I'm just sayin'."

With that, she walked away, passing him once again, though to his surprise, Jasmine followed suit, but in the opposite direction away from him, her stride quick and light. She was embarrassed.

Honestly, so was Severus.

He would have given up quite a lot in order to have been spared hearing that conversation and yet, as was the trend lately, things had not worked out that way. His mind was spinning a bit as he reflected on that bizarre feeling he had experienced the night of her birthday, but also with the information that Jasmine was due for what sounded like a date. Regardless of what she had said to the contrary, and despite his own social inadequacies, Severus knew that exchanging phone numbers at a bar typically led to ' _dates',_ not platonic, innocent friendships. Jasmine was a fool for not seeing this. And if she did see it, why in the hell would she encourage it? Was this not the same woman who until very recently had been engaged? The same woman with a scar in the back of her head from said engagement?

Jasmine had returned with another chart and Severus forced himself to look up from his notes, his features relaxed and undisturbed. He had not written a single word. Fortunately, she seemed to have returned to a normal shade but was paying much more attention to the open chart she had brought with her than she normally would have.

"Dr. Prince, I have a thirty-six year old white female, presenting with lower abdominal and right-sided back pain, vomiting, fever was rising at one hundred point eight at the last time they checked-"

Severus watched her recite the intake notes, waiting patiently for the moment when her stream of information was spent and she _had_ to look up from the chart. More than anything, he wanted to see the expression on her face and in her eyes, knowing full well that he had heard her conversation with Rebecca. He wanted to see if there was anything there to reflect how she felt one way or another about going on a date so quickly after...well, literally everything that happened with her ex-fiance. Including the part about Severus himself throwing him into the back of a van and Cursing him on his way, never to return.

When she looked up, however, to his deep surprise, Jasmine's face was unreadable, though tired. He could see that she was still heavily embarrassed by being overheard on such a delicate subject, especially by him, and it seemed from the way she raised her eyebrows that she was not at all ready to talk about it or even acknowledge it.

Severus was more than amenable to that.

"Fantastic," he replied absently, rising from his chair to once again stow his stethoscope in his back pocket. His pen fit into its usual place in his chest pocket. After joining her around the edge of the counter and after he had felt her relax a bit, he added, "What are you thinking?"

Apparently, these were the 'magic words'...in a sense.

It was difficult not to smirk when Jasmine stopped walking altogether to stare up at him, her mouth slightly ajar. Her stop was so abrupt that he continued for several paces.

"Excuse me?"

Severus paused midstep and turned to look back at her, a falsely confused expression draped carefully across his features, though the temptation to grin was becoming more and more difficult to withstand by the second. He shrugged to add to his air of misunderstanding.

"About the case?" he replied, motioning to the chart which she still carried. "Based on the clinical signs, what is your initial guess at a diagnosis?" He had begun to walk back toward her, shoulders squared, his eyes moving to look further and further down at her the closer he drew. Jasmine seemed to shrink a bit but laughed.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, tapping her forehead. "Sorry, I'm not used to you asking for my opinion," She made quite a meal of rubbing the bridge of her nose with her middle finger, lips parted in a grin like the Cheshire cat. Despite the graceful cover-up of her initial shock and misunderstanding of his question, Severus' eyebrows fell, dropping his expression; her smile widened, if possible, even further.

"Fine, you're right," he replied, snatching the chart out of her hand at her side before turning away to continue toward the exam room. "I don't care what you think. Just a doctor trying to teach a young practitioner student but no-"

"Wait, stop," Jasmine groaned in mock apology as she followed him a half-step behind. When he continued walking without a word, she jumped ahead with a quick bounce and put herself between him and the exam room door. Severus rolled his eyes to the ceiling and took a step back to put more space between them. "I think it's pancreatitis!" She exclaimed in a hushed voice, beaming up at him hopefully.

Severus gasped and leaned forward slightly to be more at her eye level. _"I think it's pancreatitis!"_ he repeated mockingly, mimicking her tone and absolutely nailing an American accent if he did say so himself. "Move," he then instructed in his natural voice, jerking his head to the left, smirking when Jasmine finally stepped to the side.

Inside the exam room, it was business time. From what Jasmine had read aloud to him, this woman was very ill and if it was a case of pancreatitis or some other infection or inflammation of a visceral organ, the situation was critical. They may have joked along the way to the exam room but Severus was all medicine, clinical, as he stepped inside.

The patient, a woman around Jasmine's age if he had heard correctly, was lying on the bed, white as the sheets beneath her, sweating, her hair damp with it. She trembled slightly and lay in an odd position. There was another young woman in the room, holding the patient's hand but Severus paid this person no mind for the time being. The patient was of utmost importance and she did _not_ look well.

"Good evening, I'm Dr. Prince," he introduced himself, approaching the bed and removing his stethoscope to set it on the rolling stand. "If you're able, would you tell me when this began?"

The young woman took a deep breath, swallowing hard on what Severus could only imagine was another bout of nausea. "It started really suddenly, like out of nowhere. I was already asleep and it woke me up, it was that bad," she explained but paused to take another breath. "That was about...an hour ago or so..." She looked questioningly to the woman at her bedside, the one clutching her hand. "About one o'clock, I guess?"

The other woman nodded, glancing up at Dr. Prince to show that this person, now presumably her partner, was correct.

Severus nodded his understanding but did not speak again immediately; his brain was working. The silence in the room was very thick indeed.

"And you say the pain is on the right side of your body?" he asked abruptly after several long moments. "Your back as well?"

Again, the woman nodded but did not seem able to give a verbal reply. She instead gestured to the area of her abdomen and her back, but she did not move her body to do so; it seemed the pain was too great and the odd position in which she lay was the only thing keeping it at bay for the time being.

Folding his arms across his chest, Severus exhaled through his nose and took a step back from the bed, mind whirring.

Perhaps he could get away with it. Just this once.

Jasmine was clear on the other side of the room and he _really_ needed to see inside this woman. Stat. He had his suspicions but needed an immediate diagnosis which Magic could provide him with in order to go forward with treatment. Which, if his suspicions were correct, would mean emergency surgery.

Steeling himself for the possibility of having to use a Memory Charm on Jasmine if this went poorly, Severus finally stepped forward and spoke.

"Katherine," He used her first name; Jasmine's head popped up from where she had been writing in the chart. "I'll need to feel your abdomen to isolate the origin of your pain," He paused while the young woman looked to her partner. "It may hurt a bit and you may vomit again but I assure you, you have my full permission to do so. As long as it isn't on me."

Katherine, the patient, gave a weak, nervous laugh in appreciation at his attempt to lighten the situation. She nodded and to his dismay, Jasmine approached the bed with an emesis tray, to the side opposite him. The woman's partner rose from her seat to make room for her.

Severus spoke again. "I know it's painful but I'll need you to roll onto your left side, away from me." He said it gently, and moved toward the bed as the woman hissed and gasped her way into a position on her left side. His heart was banging away at the inside of his chest as he prepared to dust off the old skill and put it to use again. Yes, it was nerve-wracking to do it right there in front of Jasmine but...he was really only closing his eyes, right? She could not possibly find that odd, not when he was performing what appeared to be a purely tactile exam, using only his hands; his eyes were useless anyway. At least from her perspective.

Boldened, he leaned forward slightly, placing one hand firmly but gently on the patient's hip, to alert her to his touch before he began palpating her abdomen. Thankfully, his fingers were warm and she did not flinch at the contact. "Ms. Richards, did you ever have your appendix removed?" he asked, forcefully ignoring the way Jasmine looked up from the opposite side of the bed again. "As a child, perhaps?"

His hand moved upward along the curve of her hip, where his thumb began applying firm pressure in a pattern. Anterior, posterior, anterior, posterior...Before the young woman could reply, however, she let out an almighty scream and Severus hastily closed his eyes while she vomited and distracted Jasmine, all in perfect timing.

One quick glance told him he had been right.

Appendicitis.

It was there, clear as a movie on the inside of his eyelids, the oddly shaped, rather useless organ pounding bright red and intensely painful. He released his grip on her waist immediately and opened his eyes.

"I'll take that as a no, then," he said casually, moving toward the sink at the back of the room to wash his hands while Jasmine helped their patient and her partner feel a bit cleaner. After washing quickly, he turned, drying his hands to watch Jasmine kindly helping Katherine back into a comfortable position, even tucking the blankets about her to comfort her. "I'll have to run some bloodwork to be sure but I'm fairly certain it is appendicitis, which, at your age, is fairly uncommon though easily remedied. It is, however, urgent that we take some samples of your blood now and begin that process before surgery."

He tossed the wad of damp paper towels into a waste bin by the door as his patient's eyes grew wide. "Surgery?!" She looked hastily between her partner and Dr. Prince several times as giant tears began to well up. "No, I can't-...what if-"

And Severus' attention was lost. This part was Jasmine's forte; she was the one who was so good at talking to patients, so good at calming them down, talking them off the ledge so to speak, maintaining the human element. He had no bedside manner, nor did it seem like he needed it anymore; Jasmine _was_ his bedside manner. They had so perfected their 'good cop', 'bad cop' routine that Severus did not bother to continue listening as she took over instantly for him. She did not look at him as she held out the chart. He took it from her to leave the room and begin writing his orders; she must have understood how quickly they needed to move this case.

"I know it's scary but all of our surgeons here are very skilled," she was saying as the door slid shut behind him. "Appendectomies are pretty routine for them actually-"

Hopefully, she would touch on the fact that if the surgery was not performed promptly and correctly, her appendix could burst and cause much, much bigger problems. Somehow he doubted this would come up in conversation.

It was not long after Severus had informed Dr. Oakes that he would not be taking any patients for the next hour due to the urgency of his current case when he saw Jasmine fly out of the patient's room down the hall, vials of freshly drawn blood inside a bag clutched in her hand. A curl had pulled loose from her ponytail and flapped in the wind of the near trot at which she approached the nurses' station. Severus watched from where he stood there, hands clasped behind his back, shoulders relaxed; calm. These were the cases he lived for.

A thirty-six year old woman with appendicitis was interesting.

He tried hard not to smirk as he watched Jasmine's expression morph the closer she drew, the more she seemed to take in his unnerving level of tranquility. She gestured at him as she finally reached the desk, face contorted into a frown.

"Just...chillin'? Just kinda hangin' out while this patient works herself toward a rupture?" she asked somewhat hotly. Severus remained silent but felt his eyebrows arch of their own accord.

Easy now, little thing.

"Dr. Prince," she sighed in exasperation, shifting her weight from one foot to another, pressing the back of her hand (blood bag included) to her forehead. "I just told this girl her appendix could burst any second and now she-"

"You did?" Severus asked this outright, his tone full of surprise that he could not hide. When Jasmine simply stared back at him, in a very 'yes, you idiot' sort of way, he shrugged, nodding his head. "Impressive. Continue."

Again, Jasmine stared, mouth-open, at him for several long moments before she finished her sentence. "-now she wants the surgery done like...stat."

It seemed she had finished speaking, so Severus took over, unlinking his fingers behind his back, to instead place his hands flat on the desk before him. Thanks to his height, this brought them to exactly eye-level, though still two feet of desk and counterspace remained beween them. He took a deep breath.

"I wonder, during your extensive nursing studies, have you ever heard the term 'diagnostic criteria'?" he asked simply, squinting slightly as Jasmine immediately flushed pink. She looked away. "Yes, I thought you might have," he continued, purposely keeping his tone somewhat light. "Please, if you could, tell me why I can't send this woman for surgery consult right this moment."

When she looked up, it was with the iciest of glares, though a tiny fleck of light shone through, where he _hoped_ she understood that he was not mocking her...Well, maybe just a little. She was also fighting tremendously hard not to grin, so Severus took that as a good sign. She rolled her eyes as she waved the bag with the blood tubes in it and turned away from the desk.

"Because you need bloodwork to confirm appendicitis first, I know, jeez-"

"Need what?" he asked rather loudly over her last few words, at her retreating back and smirked when she scratched at an itch between her shoulder blades using only her middle finger.

At that moment, Dr. Oakes came around the corner, but started slightly at the sight of Severus standing there versus sitting. His shoulders squared a bit as he set a stack of charts down. "What's up?" he asked, following Severus' gaze toward the back of triage, at the double doors through which Jasmine had just disappeared.

Severus shook his head with a quiet laugh through his nose, finally opting to sit down, where he picked up the phone and began dialing. "Nothing," he replied.

Across from him, Oakes rolled his eyes as he too sat down at his usual place and opened the top chart of his stack. "Aww, inside jokes, cute..." he mocked under his breath.

Severus focused quickly and turned the ink in his pen blue with a silent Charm.

Oakes had just scrawled a few words, stopped, and picked up his pen again to stare at the tip when the other end of the line answered.

"Yes, I'd like to schedule a critical patient for appendectomy," he growled into the phone. "She will be ready for an anesthesia team pending labwork in about twenty minutes."

…...

She had read the bloodwork papers line by line as the machine printed it. Katherine definitely had appendicitis and it took quite a lot of effort to keep herself from outright sprinting back to the nurses' station. Running in an emergency room, unless absolutely necessary, caused undue panic amongst the nurses and typically distracted everyone. So she walked as quickly as her legs could take her, though with the nurses' station now in sight, she felt her stomach drop as she noticed Dr. Prince standing at the desk, arms folded with a phone to his ear; he looked livid.

Oh no...

He glanced up as she drew nearer but his expression did not change. He held out his hand for the slips of paper and took them, glanced at them once, briefly, but then spoke suddenly. "Yes, you told me Dr. Knight can be here in a half-hour but as I've told _you_ , patient's ALP and transaminase is through the roof, this is a critical window of time-"

He had already told them the bloodwork results?

His voice was like venom, it made her skin crawl but undeniably, there was something very commanding in it, authoritative, demanding in all the right ways. It was honestly kind of attractive.

Jasmine continued to listen and observe as Dr. Prince finally seemed to lose his patience and he unfolded his arms, gathering the chart and his stethoscope from the desk.

"Fine," he stated with finality into the phone. "Is there an operating room available right now?" He paused long enough for an answer, before giving one stiff nod. "I need it prepped for an appendectomy and any available anethesia team sent there, immediately. Patient number 328189 will need transport from emergency B to pre-op suite twelve. "

Jasmine's heart had not stopped racing and she could feel some sort of weird, palpable energy bubbling inide him as he set the phone down. He calmly looked to Dr. Oakes, who had also been listening to the audible half of his conversation with a rather rapt expression on his face. He nodded at him.

"You'll be the only attending for a bit but McCann should be here soon. It's already after three now."he explained, his tone returned to normal though still crisp and sharp, full of that energy, almost what she could tentatively call excitement. Without waiting for an answer from Dr. Oakes, he left the nurses' station and rounded the corner, his eyes giving the only indication that he would like for her to follow; they glanced down at her as he passed.

It was then that she decided she could wait no longer to dare ask what had happened on the phone with the surgery scheduler. The excited energy about him seemed to have dissipated some of his mood from the conversation.

"So...they couldn't find a surgeon?" she asked what she felt was a stupid question and immediately regretted it. Though when she fully expected a smartass answer from Dr. Prince, he merely replied, "Nope."

She blinked up at him, barely noticing the swinging double doors as they passed through them. "And everyone here is already-"

"Yep."

For a long moment, she paused while things fell into place. "So, who's going to do it?" she asked, again stupidly. Her hopes were rising very rapidly.

Finally, the smirk he had been trying to contain made itself evident on his face and her heart soared.

"I am," he replied simply, and Jasmine had been about to gasp in excitement when he continued. "And I'd like for you to scrub in with me, if you're comfortable-"

"Of course I'm comfortable! Yeah!" she replied at a near shout as she bounced on the balls of her tennis shoes, the tops of her cheeks obscuring her vision slightly with the force of her grin. Dr. Prince ignored her blatant eagerness but maintained his smirk.

"Though I should warn you, we are near the end of the shift and this could be a lengthy procedure."

Jasmine felt her smile slide from her face like dripping egg.

…...

And there it was. Severus had been saving for that since the moment the surgery coordinator had told him there were no available surgeons. He had known he would end up doing the surgery, he had known Jasmine would want to assist for him and yet, what about her coffee date? He had awaited her reaction with much anticipation.

But when he had fully expected her to stop and consider it, maybe request to go back to her phone briefly, perhaps outright decline his offer, Jasmine simply walked on, keeping up with his stride, shoulders straight and posture perfect. Her expression had gone stony and fixed; she was in work mode.

"No, screw that," she replied forcefully; Severus grinned. "Let's go do this."

It was difficult not to let just one small laugh out as he held open the door to the surgery wing of the hospital and allowed Jasmine to walk through before him. Instead, he followed in silence but grinned nastily as the heavy door slammed shut behind them.

Sorry, _bro._

… _..._

A/N: YAY! The winter break has arrived! I made it through the semesters with some top grades and now have over a month to get in some serious writing time! This chapter has sooooo much more to it that it would have been at least 20 pages had I posted it all together so I've split it into two parts. So look forward to the part 2 of this chapter coming soon! (Yeah, we goin to surgery!) Thank you so much for being patient with me and I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Also, thank you soooo much for the reviews on the previous chapter, they really make a writer feel good! Very humbled that so many people are enjoying my story.

-QoM


	15. Born In Winter pt2

The vast pre-operative scrub room was absolutely freezing as Jasmine stepped in after Dr. Prince, who began immediately pulling sterile packaged surgical scrub, gloves, gown and cap from within cabinets. Goosebumps coated her arms but she ignored it for the time being, continuing further inside to the sliding doors leading into the operating room beyond. Several nurses and someone who looked like a residency student doctor were in the room already with the patient, hooking cords and wires to her body to monitor all of her vital signs while under anesthesia. And it appeared the team had already accomplished that, as the patient lay quite motionless, her eyes lubricated and taped shut. Jasmine was in the process of watching the heart rate on the monitor out of habit when Dr. Prince's voice caused her to jump.

"You _did_ say you wanted to assist, correct?"

She turned to look at him and opened her mouth to speak, to reply yes, she did, but instead of that, she merely made a noise through her teeth like a punctured tire.

He had taken his hair down from his usual knot and it lay in a wavy bundle between his shoulder blades, falling into his face and over his shoulders. It was longer than she had imagined it, black as night and glossy, shimmery as if each strand was spun of the finest glass. But almost as quickly as she had turned to see it, it was gone, back up into another knot, but one which sat higher on the back of his head, to allow for tying of the surgical mask. No random pieces escaped this one. She blinked hard several times to refocus her attention.

"Yeah, and I do. I was checking the patient, Doc, jeez," she sputtered, feeling a bit of nervousness begin to bubble at the pit of her stomach.

She had not been a sterile assisting nurse on a surgery in a while, and although she knew this stuff forward and back, it was a little intimidating to be directly under the eye of Dr. Prince. Even something so simple as placing an intravenous catheter was suddenly nerve-wracking if he was nearby and watching. But she had yet to outright fail at something he had asked her to do, so perhaps this could be a chance for her to show another extension of her skill set, to prove at last that she deserved to work alongside him, at this hospital, despite any family ties with upper management.

He had just applied a navy blue, sterile surgical cap, tied on his mask and was opening a pack of surgical scrub when Jasmine could not help herself but ask, "And you _definitely_ know how to do appendectomies, right?"

She really could not help it. She had never seen Dr. Prince perform surgery, had never even known he took the chance to do them, as he had referred almost everything to another department since she had begun working with him. If she was going to scrub in and assist for him, she just _had_ to know that he felt completely comfortable with it.

However, when she fully expected him to scoff or even be offended by her question, she watched his eyebrows raise and his angular, broad shoulders shrugged once.

"I suppose we are _definitely_ going to find out, aren't we?" he replied, glancing over at her as he scrubbed the inside of his forearm, only his eyes and a few inches above them visible. But while Jasmine took a moment to decide whether he was being serious or not, she noticed the vague lines in his skin just above the top edge of his mask begin to crease and she rolled her eyes with a huff.

"Yes, I know how to do appendectomies," he grumbled, shaking his head. "Promise."

Jasmine watched the side of his masked face, observing his expression as it deepened steadily into a frown and she waited for it, grinning as she could practically hear him attempting not to-

 _"Honestly_..." He hissed abruptly from behind the mask. "Do I know how to-...Would I really have volunteered for a surgery I don't know how to do?"

 _"There_ it is." Jasmine laughed, carefully pulling open a gown pack and unfolding it.

"It was a stupid question and you know it," Dr. Prince grumbled in response, flinging excess water from his hands and arms.

After he had completed the scrubbing-in ritual, and after Jasmine had tied his gown, he left her to complete her own and entered the operating room before her, gloved, sterile hands interlocked across his middle. In his absence, she took a moment to take some deep breaths, attempt to slow her heart rate, focus her mind and get in the zone. She could hear Dr. Prince's deep, muffled voice through the door and oddly, it brought her a sense of comfort knowing that he was there, that he was confident in this surgery and that she was confident in his knowledge and skills. Perhaps her only anxiety was that _she_ would mess up. How much would he trust her if she somehow failed him with something in this surgery?

But no, it wouldn't happen. She knew what she was doing, damnit, and she was going to show him that, finally. He would not have asked her directly to scrub in with him if he didn't have at least a little faith in her abilities. So she wouldn't let him down; it was as simple as that.

Finally, masked, scrubbed, gowned and gloved, Jasmine stepped into the operating room, the scent of anesthesia and sterile oxygen very light on the air, mixed with the always prevalent odor of surgical scrub. Dr. Prince was speaking with the anesthesia lead nurse.

"She seems to be maintaining well at this rate," he stated, his eyes trained on the heartrate monitor. "We can titrate and bolus as needed throughout but I expect she will remain within normal limits. Labwork shows she's healthy otherwise."

Beneath her haze of calm readiness, Jasmine felt a twinge of surprise at how cordially he seemed to be addressing this nurse. It was a male nurse, but that made little difference; his typical curtness did not discriminate. The nurse appeared just as surprised and seemed to seize the opportunity to continue their talk.

"I have crash drugs ready if needed and I'll keep an eye on-"

"You will not keep an eye on anything here," Dr. Prince interrupted, eyes still trained on the vitals monitor. You and the rest of the anesthesia team will wait on standby in the theater and see to her post-op recovery," He said this all very abruptly but very smoothly. "If your dosing and administration of the drugs was correct, Miss. Taylor and I should not need further assistance."

Jasmine nearly laughed aloud.

 _There_ it-

Wait, what?!

Her eyes frantically sought Dr. Prince's over the top of their masks as the male anesthesia nurse made a quick exit. No further assistance? Was he kidding?

Jasmine felt her stomach sink to the floor as she heard the distant door closing behind the other nurses and the silence aside from the heart rate monitor seemed to swell in the room around her like an uncomfortable balloon.

"Dr. Prince, I really think it would be smart to have just one other nurse in here..." She said it so delicately, timidly even, but she had to say it. Assisting alone in a surgery like this was unheard of to her and frankly a bit dangerous in her opinion.

When he finally looked away from the vitals monitor to meet her eyes, she felt a calmness spread throughout her. The look there was soft, reassuring, maybe even a little encouraging. Though it easily could have been nothing as well. Perhaps she was only perceiving what she wanted to find there. His eyes were typically unreadable, even when the rest of his face was not obscured by a surgical mask and cap. And she found that with only his eyes visible, his normally piercing gaze was ten times intensified.

"Jasmine," But he said her name firmly and that feeling of calmness deepened. "I wouldn't have asked you to do this if I did not trust your capabilities. You know what you're doing and I'm right here." He paused and held out his hand across the patient to her. "Everything is under control. I promise."

For one foolish moment, Jasmine glanced down at his gloved hand, wondering if he had held it out for her to take with her own, clasp it for just a moment before beginning the procedure. But somehow, she had an overwhelming feeling that he was simply asking for a drape clamp in order to start and would look at her very oddly were she to take his hand instead. Fighting not to giggle and roll her eyes at herself, Jasmine passed the clamp to him with perfect operating room form, and the surgery began.

The initial incision caused a mild spike in the patient's heart rate, but it seemed Dr. Prince had expected this and prepared for it. He spared a quick glance at the monitor before continuing without further instruction. Jasmine watched his hands as he held the scalpel, how delicately his fingers gripped the surgical grade steel, noting how they did not shake or waver at all. Meanwhile, her hands trembled like leaves as she had passed those first few instruments to him. She found it wildly impressive how calm he was remaining while cutting into a live human being. Yes, she was a nurse, but surgery was exactly why she had not pursued becoming a doctor and had opted for the highest title a nurse could achieve. Something about literally holding someone else's life in her hands, while thrilling, made her want to faint. Too much responsibility.

Dr. Prince was acting as though he did this every day, for fun, in his spare time.

Jasmine chanced a glance at his eyes while he placed a retractor between the edges of his incision. They were focused and narrowed down on what he was doing, his pupils tiny dots under the bright surgical lamps. He must have felt her watching him as his eyebrows rose slightly, though his attention did not move from adjusting the instrument.

"Feeling better?" he asked casually.

Jasmine frowned.

"About what?" she asked in response, looking away to the heart rate monitor quickly when his eyes rose to meet hers. After confirming the heart rate and oxygen saturation, she looked back to him, awaiting a reply, but he had already returned his attention to the open abdominal cavity between them. Those vague lines next to his eyes indicated a smirk.

"Never mind."

Silence resumed.

At some point, Jasmine had begun sweating beneath her hair, beneath the surgical cap but she paid it no mind; Dr. Prince was moving through the surgery quickly. Hopefully, he would be finished before the glistening reached her face and became obvious, though she was absolutely positive she was already sporting the world's largest pit-stains beneath the gown through her scrubs. Hadn't she just been freezing cold before they started?

After a vitals check and a gentle push on the patient's fingernail to check her capillary refill time, Jasmine looked down at the opening to the inside of her body that Dr. Prince had made and gasped aloud. There, exposed neatly and bright red, was the odd, bizarrely shaped appendix. She had seen exposed organs before of course, but it still fascinated her every time. It was just too cool.

Dr. Prince seemed entertained by her interest for only a moment before he spoke. "Irrigation and sponges, please?" he asked, though as Jasmine turned hastily to pick up the sterile bottle of saline, he added, "I mean, that _is_ the appendix, yes? I'm not too familiar with anatomy but-"

"Shut up," Jasmine cut him off, rolling her eyes as she sprayed a gentle stream of saline onto the organ, to clear the blood away so he could visualize it more properly.

"I'll need you to hold the Carmault hemostat while I excise and ligate," he said a bit more quietly, his tone professional and clinical again. "I'll show you where, just have it ready."

Jasmine nodded her understanding and removed the instrument he had indicated from the open pack on the stand next to her. Her heart was pounding again, but so was the patient's; everything was under control and they were almost halfway done.

After manipulating a few things, cutting tissue away from tissue and clamping two other hemostats along a large vessel, Dr. Prince removed one bloodied glove to point. Jasmine quickly leaned forward with the hemostats.

"Clamp right here, cranial to my finger," he instructed, and she did so quickly, clamping the crushing tool down hard on the main blood vessel supplying the appendix. "Hold it laterally out of the way."

Jasmine exhaled heavily but silently behind her mask. Almost done.

She held the clamped hemostats as still as humanly possible while Dr. Prince sutured and ligated the smaller vessels, using a very tiny needle and dissolvable suture material. Jasmine was in the process of checking the patient's vitals yet again when she felt the hemostat twitch lightly in her grip and she looked over just in time to see him lifting their patient's entire appendix from inside her body in one inflamed, red mess of tissue. With one hand still holding the hemostats stationary, she reached for a steel biohazard bowl and held it out for him to dispose of the now dead, useless organ.

"You can release the hemostat now," he instructed, wiggling his pinky at the instrument still inside the patient.

Jasmine frowned.

"You already ligated?" she asked, hoping he would not take offense to her asking yet another question in regards to his surgical competence. To her surprise, he simply nodded, shrugging his shoulders.

"I even double checked it just for you," he answered, deep brown eyes full with sarcasm. He nodded his head impatiently. "Now unclamp that and let's be done with it."

Annoyed that she had somehow missed watching him suture around the tip of the hemostat, she accepted his word as truth, unclamped the tool to remove them and lay them back down on the stand. The vessel held properly and began to pinken up from where she had been clamping it. Amazing. She had barely felt him doing it.

Meanwhile, Dr. Prince had removed the retractors and begun stitching a line of subcuticular sutures, a layer that sat just beneath the skin and closed the deepest level of the dermis before cutaneous sutures were placed. Jasmine watched with interest. Suturing was one of her favorite things to watch him do. He was so good at it, having worked almost exclusively in emergency medicine where sutures were needed on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. He was very quick and his spacing was typically immaculate when the wound allowed for it.

At the end of the line, after he had tied a very tiny, secure knot, he used only the scalpel blade to sever the extra suture material before turning the needle drivers and hemostats over in his hands so that the ring handles faced Jasmine.

"I'm finished," he stated abruptly, finally looking up to meet her eyes when they widened. "Close the incision please, if you will."

A heavy moment of silence passed where the only noise in the room came from the regulating, steady heart rate of their patient over the speakers.

Severus was finding it incredibly difficult not to laugh out loud at the expression that had just befallen Jasmine. She looked as though someone had struck her in the face with a bat, crossed with a deer staring into headlights. Just as he had predicted. But she needed to see that he trusted her with this, that she was surviving as his nurse purely because she had earned it, she had proven herself and this was the reward.

"But I'm not allowed to suture-" she began cautiously but Severus interrupted, rolling his eyes.

"Nurse practitioners are allowed to suture cutaneously under the supervision of a physician, which I happen to be. Now, if you'd please..." He nodded again at the patient. When Jasmine continued to hesitate, he sighed in exasperation. "I promise you'll only get in trouble if she dies," he stated abruptly, smirking when Jasmine scowled at him from behind her mask. "Oh, go on. Do it."

 _Finally,_ Jasmine took the needle driver and hemostat from him, though her hands trembled a bit and she shook her head, exhaling heavily. Glistening pin pricks of sweat had begun to gather along the edge of her mask. Severus' smirk grew into a grin and he took a step back from the table to glance at the clock on the wall.

4:34 am.

Under an hour for an appendectomy? Not bad.

"Do you want Ford interlocking for this?" Jasmine asked, her eyes staring down at the slowly oozing incision. Severus shrugged but felt a wave of mingled surprise and annoyance roll over him. Of course she knew how to suture, and probably very well; how very like her to act unsure.

"If you know that pattern and feel it will work for this incision, then by all means," he replied, returning his attention to the patient from where he had been watching the monitor. Jasmine dabbed a bit of blood away from the incision with a piece of gauze.

Severus watched with anticipation as she approached the skin at long last with the razor sharp tip of the suture material, and against himself, amidst the heavy silence of her concentration, he gasped loudly, unexpectedly as she made the first pierce. To his satisfaction, Jasmine squealed and jumped, but her hands did not move. She looked up at him frantically.

"What the hell!" she exclaimed, pushing the needle all the way through while Severus allowed himself to laugh genuinely, his deep voice echoing in the tiled room. "That's really not cool!" she chastised him, though the lines next to her eyes spoke loudly of the grin she hid beneath her mask.

"So sorry," he apologized with a final chuckle, clearing his throat to fold his arms across his chest. "I couldn't help myself."

"Shut up."

Less than five minutes later, Jasmine had placed a perfectly spaced, intricate and totally unnecessary row of Ford interlocking sutures and took a step back from the patient, hands in the air. Her face, or what was visible of it, was beaming with joy and shining with sweat.

"Done!" she exclaimed. "Good?" She pointed at the sutures.

Severus could not help himself but grin and nod. "Good," he replied, thinking passively of his original plan to simply use skin glue and the small bottle of it sitting currently on the stand just next to Jasmine.

This had been vastly more entertaining and more importantly, it had MADE HER NIGHT.

Fifteen minutes later, after the anesthesia team had come to wake their patient and move her to recovery, and after Severus and Jasmine both had ungowned, degloved and decapped, he followed her out into the hallway, smirking as she quite literally leaped while she spoke.

"That-" _Jump "-_ was-" _Jump "-_ AWESOME!" _BIG jump._

Severus nodded his agreement, pushing his hands into the pockets of his scrubs to travel the labyrinthine hallways back toward the emergency room, a full step behind her. He sighed as she bounced and turned to look back at him.

"Not half bad for my first surgery, eh?" he replied jokingly and laughed when Jasmine's cheerful face faltered for a half-second in momentary belief. She rolled her eyes a moment later while he shook his head. "Christ, it's just too easy with you."

"No, you're just a dick," she replied in a quieter voice than the one she used when she continued immediately, without leaving him the opportunity to interject. "But the sutures were good? The placement and spacing? It's been so long since I've done it, I'm surprised I remembered how!"

Amused but feeling a bit of that post-work exhaustion coming on, Severus nodded, opting against another smart-ass comment in favor of the truth. The truth cost him less effort.

"Yes, they were good. I'm impressed. Ford interlocking is typically for larger incisions, so managing a good one on a four inch appendectomy site is a good skill. It should allow her a greater range of motion and leave less of a scar after healing."

They had stopped walking, he had finally turned to look down at her, and discovered that she had bloomed bright pink.

Despite whatever he had said to cause this phenomenon, she still managed to smile up at him and nod. "Thank you," she replied gently.

Then like a piano out of the sky, an awkward silence fell on them unexpectedly, on the entire hallway, which, upon looking around, Severus realized was entirely empty and he had stopped in front of the men's locker room door. It was suddenly difficult to look at her directly and in lieu of doing so, he glanced at his watch without checking the time. He knew what damn time it was.

"If you'll excuse me," he broke the silence, his voice like a gunshot in the echoey hallway. "I need to-"

"Oh!" Jasmine exclaimed, giving a start and a weird laugh. "Yeah, of course! Duh, I need to do that too."

And off she went, back up the hall in the direction from whence they had come, to the ladies' locker room door. Severus disappeared inside the room behind him and exhaled heavily in relief when he found it empty. The rows of navy, painted, metal lockers with varying combination and key locks offered him some quiet from the outside general din of the hospital.

He absolutely could not wait to get home and sleep, but he had to admit...performing an entire surgery directly in front of Jasmine, with only Jasmine, had been exciting. But performing several _Charms_ during the surgery, directly in front of Jasmine had been absolutely thrilling. He had watched her so carefully, even while focused on the patient, noted when she would look up to do her check of the vitals and timed his movements and Magic accordingly. It was a triumph! A win that he needed.

But as he pulled his shirt over his head and obnoxiously high, tight bun of hair, he scowled at the metal back wall of the locker. As good as it felt, as smoothly as it had allowed the surgery to go, Severus could not get complacent. He tugged the elastic from his hair to release it and re-tie it into his loose, lower knot. All in all, he had performed quite a bit of Magic that night, perhaps on some adrenaline high over the surgery, but he could not get sloppy with it. Just because it had escaped Jasmine's notice this time did not mean she would forever stay blind to it. Thus far, he opted to consider himself lucky. Yes, Muggles tended to miss obvious signs of Magic all the time, like Oakes, who wouldn't notice a floating broomstick if Severus were to attempt to beat him with it. But Jasmine was different; she was observant, aware of her surroundings and most annoyingly, knowledgeable. If he was going to begin using Magic alongside medicine again, with Jasmine nearby, he would simply have to exercise the greatest caution and only use it when absolutely necessary. Certainly not out of laziness or simply to do it.

God, he could not wait to sleep.

Once clothed in his normal jeans and thermal shirt and scarf, he gathered his stethoscope and coat and stepped out into the hallway. It was mercifully empty, though he immediately found it odd that Jasmine had not been out there, waiting to further dissect their successful surgery. He could not decide whether or not he wanted to be annoyed that she had left without saying goodnight or bye or anything.

However, as he turned the corner that would lead him to the garage, scowling, he paused midstep with one arm halfway into his coat when he saw Jasmine's side profile at the end of the hall. She was sitting on the small bench there, already in her coat, perched on the edge of the seat with her short legs stretched comfortably in front of her. Her back was straight, posture perfect as usual. His stomach tightened into a knot and he suddenly, vaguely wished that she _had_ left without saying anything. He continued walking in her direction, taking a deep breath and exhaling silently.

At around fifteen feet of distance, his nose picked up the scent of coconut 'body wash' (he considered it chemical wash) and he found his anxiety momentarily distracted by wondering how the hell she had showered that quickly.

She had apparently noticed him coming as she stood up with a hop, her face still bright and alert, full of energy that, quite frankly, he had no idea where it came from. The surgery alone seemed to have had an effect similar to that of giving sugar to a young child.

"So, um-" she began, tucking her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. "I wanted to see if I could buy you coffee for letting me help with the surgery. And for...y'know doing the surgery right and saving her life or whatever..." She added the last bit with a sarcastic roll of her eyes and Severus smirked.

There was an entire argument inside his head within the span of time it took him to blink twice.

He was exhausted.

But Jamsine really had done a great job and she _so_ wanted him to say yes.

But he was tired. Really tired. And his bed was literally just-

What happened the last time he turned down an invitation from her?

The time was only a little after five; she could still make that 'coffee appointment' with whats-his-name.

She had also gone into that surgery with the full intention to flake out on that guy in favor of being there with him, doing her job and doing an excellent job at it.

"Where did you have in mind?"

Jasmine had initially suggested that they simply get coffee at the coffee shop so conveniently located in the lobby of the hospital itself, but Severus had experienced an immediate vision of Sinclair arriving to work to find both of them sitting there well after their shift had ended. He was not sure why, but after the morning he was discovered in her driveway, and since he was absolutely sure Jasmine had told Sinclair about his act of chivalry, the very last thing he wanted was any chance of another run-in with her. But he knew her relation to Sinclair was a touchy subject so he opted for the excuse that he was simply tired of the hospital and would prefer somewhere off-campus. She had been all too happy to supply another place, which was what had brought him to a corner table at a small, urban-themed coffee shop across the street.

Jasmine had asked what he wanted as they walked in, but having never set foot in this shop before, he merely asked for black coffee; it was the only way he took coffee anyway. She had bustled off to the counter and Severus had slid into one of the chairs at the high-top table in the corner, mentally searching the stores in his lab, hoping he had a bit of the reversal potion for caffeine left. He never drank coffee after a shift, but by then, the sun had already started emerging for the day. It was 'morning' in his mind.

So he was having coffee. With Jasmine. Outside of the hospital.

He huffed a tired breath behind his hands as he rubbed his eyes deeply. Had he more energy to feel it, he supposed he would be nervous, anxious at least about being here, alone with her, having to talk to her one-on-one without the five and a half million distractions at the hospital. He supposed he would feel all that. But honestly, what was the point? He truly did not have the energy to even stir those emotions at that time and all he could really feel inside currently was just a blank, buzzing, dull hum of sleepiness. Quite aside from all of that, he felt he had gotten somewhat close enough to Jasmine by then that he could sit here and have a simple conversation...He didn't have to stay _that_ long.

Agreeing to come in the first place had been madness. He really ought to have declined and gone home but it kept creeping up in his mind, the fact that she had stayed past her shift, missed what was very likely an actual date, all to be there in surgery with him, to help a woman to whom she owed absolutely nothing. Also, in spite of how much he hated it, he kept thinking back to the night of her birthday and how strongly his instincts had disagreed with his choice to decline that offer. Sitting at that table, he had none of the tugging gut feelings and random waves of guilt as he had done that night. It seemed he was in the right place for the time being.

As he looked up from behind his fingers, the spots gradually disappearing from his vision, he saw Jasmine zooming toward him, two red cardboard cups in her hands, beaming. Severus swore under his breath and looked away, feeling his stomach plummet to the bottom of his lap. His pulse quickened for absolutely no physiological reason whatsoever.

Ah. There it is.

However, as quickly as the anxiety had swept over him, it was gone, as he watched Jasmine give a little hop in order to get up onto the high stool. Something about this was apparently funny to his sleep-deprived brain and he laughed, quietly, deep in his chest with a shake of his head. Jasmine shot him a dirty look from across the table but set a cup of presumably black coffee in front of him and took a sip of her own.

"So," she began, quickly reaching out to tap the bottom of her cup against the top of his. "Congratulations."

Severus' eyebrows arched as he reached out to remove the plastic lid from the scalding hot cup before him. He scowled at it as he set it on the table upside down. "For what?" he asked in a somewhat lazy drawl, his voice beginning to give out on him. The surface of the coffee looked positively volcanic so he left it alone momentarily and looked across the table to her. She was grinning, her eyes sparkling with something he had only seen there a few times before.

"For solving world hunger, Sherlock," she replied sarcastically, rolling her eyes. Severus' expression dropped and her grin widened. "For a successful surgery, Doc. The surgery you just did like an hour ago."

Exhaling a weary laugh through his nose, he finally picked up his cup, mumbling a gravelly, "Oh, right. Cheers," before taking a small sip of bitter coffee. "Same to-"

" _Also,_ " Jasmine continued over him, her warm grin gaining something of a malicious overtone. "Because tonight was the last shift of my ninety-day probationary period."

At last, Severus understood where she was going with this and he sat up a bit straighter in the chair, squaring his shoulders to lean on his forearms on the table between them. He frowned at her with a look as though he was deeply interested in what she was saying.

"Oh, was it?" he asked, watching closely as Jasmine mimicked his posture as best she could, being nearly a full head shorter.

She nodded. "It was indeed!" Her voice gained a note of excitement. "I'm officially an employee at Boston General. So _now_ I can tell you to go _fuck yourself_ and all you can do is write me up."

She took a delicate, self-satisfied sip of whatever she was drinking while Severus smirked at her. Technically, she was right. She was officially an employee of the hospital, officially his assisting nurse, but also, officially sitting across from him at half past five in the morning drinking coffee, off the clock. So _technically_ , she was allowed to say whatever she damn well wanted. He opted not to remind her of this. Instead, he drank a bit more coffee before he leaned back from the table.

"Unless I'm mistaken, employees are only allowed one write-up before there's a disciplinary review," he replied smoothly, his smirk gaining strength when the tops of Jasmine's cheeks flushed pink. He leaned forward slightly to lower his voice as a man with a computer sat down at a table nearby. "So if you're planning to tell me to go fuck myself, you'll only get the one chance," His smirk evolved into a grin. "Better make it a good one."

For a moment, she stared back at him challengingly, fighting hard not to grin, before the computer a few tables down chimed to life and broke her concentration. She glanced in the direction of the man and watched him for a moment, a content but weary, far-away expression on her face, as though her mind had slipped off to a different place altogether.

Severus liked watching her when she did this. Whether she was aware of it or not, she did it rather often, when her time was briefly unoccupied, after finishing her notes for instance, or even sometimes when standing amongst the other nurses, or...riding along in a car, listening to a song she liked. She was truly one of the happiest people he had ever met, even with a traumatic event so recently in her life. He could not imagine what she had been like before the incident, but he felt he was beginning to find out, little by little, day by day.

Too tired to look away quickly, too drained to pretend he had not just been openly staring at her, he merely raised his eyebrows when she looked back to him. "So, um,-" she began hesitantly. "Lind- uh, Sinc-...My aunt kinda told me in passing that..." She paused again as Severus' eyebrows arched dangerously. "-that you've only been an MD for four years or so?"

A tiny flare of anger bubbled to life in his stomach at Sinclair but he passed over it temporarily in order to spare Jasmine his nastier comments about her blessed Aunt Linda. Instead, he nodded, knowing full well that if she knew this much, she knew exactly what the rest of his file contained; they might have sat together at dinner and read it aloud for all he knew.

"Four years this coming spring," he confirmed, taking another sip of his coffee and finally feeling a bit of alertness returning to his brain.

If she was going to ask him about his past, he needed to be awake, paying attention. He could not afford to decline answering any of her questions or answering them incorrectly, since that was exponentially more suspicious than simply reciting his falsified history in conversation form.

Across the table, Jasmine laughed, her expression bright. "That's so cool!" she said kindly, shaking her head. "I definitely thought you'd been a doctor for a lot longer. You really know your stuff for only four years."

A distinctly uncomfortable feeling began creeping up on Severus but he fought it, merely dropping his head a bit in acknowledgement of her compliment. "Knowing your stuff is a pretty important part of being a doctor," he replied stupidly. Jasmine grinned.

"What did you do before doctoring?" she asked, cocking her head to one side. When Severus opened his mouth but did not speak, she rolled her eyes. "I know you're secretly an undercover international spy and can't tell me much, but at least tell me the story they made you memorize."

At this, he could not help but laugh aloud, a tired, croaky thing but a laugh none the less. He shook his head, slowly rotating his cooling coffee cup in a counter clockwise circle on the table. Hell, she was the one who said 'friends'. If that was indeed what she was trying to accomplish then he would have to answer these questions at some point or another anyway.

He took a deep breath. "I was a teacher, actually," he said without much need for any acting. That part was not a lie.

"Oh, really?" Jasmine asked, her eyebrows rising in true surprise. "Like...at a college or university?"

So amused with the truth, Severus laughed again, rubbing the short, new stubble on his cheek. "No, I taught kids. Children ages eleven to seventeen or so."

Jasmine joined him in laughing, her expression incredulous and surprised. " _You taught_ _kids?"_ she repeated him in question form, giggling as he nodded. "What subject?"

Prepared for this question, having had to answer it on the spot before, Severus replied, "Chemistry." It was the closest thing to 'Potions' a Muggle could understand.

"Oh, wow," she laughed with a slight groan. "I hated chemistry. Maybe I would have done better if I'd taken your class."

Severus forewent a verbal reply but smirked appreciatively.

Maybe not.

"What about you then?" he asked abruptly, sitting up from where he had caught himself slouching on the stool. It was a blatant attempt at moving the subject from himself, one that he doubted she would miss, but he was beyond the point of subtlety. "What did you do before nursing?"

Graciously, Jasmine moved past his turn in subject without comment and shrugged, tucking a loose, crazy curl behind her ear. "I had a job in high school for a while," she answered, her eyes gaining a bit of that far-away look to them again. "Y'know, a little coffee shop on the beach on Saturday and Sunday, just smoking weed and being a dumb teenager," She shrugged and laughed again. "But after I graduated, I went straight into nursing school and that's been it ever since."

Severus nodded, genuinely impressed at her length of experience. He tipped the rim of his coffee cup in her direction as he raised it to take a sip. "Hence the Ford interlocking," The cup met the table again and he cleared his throat before adding an underbreath, "...show-off."

"Yeah, good thing you _never_ show off," she replied snarkily. "It would be super annoying if you took credit for everything."

He knew exactly the incident to which she was referring and immediately resumed their mock argument over it from a few weeks prior.

"I did not take all the credit," he defended himself, smirking. "I just never actually said _who_ found the bullet. It was never brought up in my notes, nor to the police..."

"Wow, yeah, that's so weird," she agreed, her eyes bright with sarcasm.

A comfortable silence fell over the table while both of them watched a few more patrons file into the warm interior of the shop, the sun rising further, the crisp early light gradually defrosting the front windows. Among the people entering the shop was a shorter Indian man with jet black hair, wearing a suit and looking stern. He too recognized Severus immediately and gave a wave of his hand, which he returned with a nod.

Jasmine seemed to have noticed the exchange, as she looked over at him to ask, "Who's that?"

Severus turned to face her more fully again, resting his arms on the table. "That's Dr. Amin. He works with Pierce's group in neurology," he replied, taking one last sip of his coffee and deciding he was done. He was still exhausted but the caffeine was accelerating his heart rate uncomfortably. How he wished he could Transfigure the coffee in the cup to pure, clean water without Jasmine noticing.

At his answer, she tossed her hands in exasperation. "Seriously, how have I been at this hospital for three months already and only know about twelve people?" she asked, though Severus had absolutely no response. She seemed to sense this as she went on.. "Which reminds me, I wanted to ask about this holiday party thing. I'm sure you saw the-"

Unable to stop himself, Severus interrupted, holding up a hand. "Yes, I saw the retina-melting display your dear, sweet Aunt concocted. If you could _please_ ask her to have that disabled, I would sincerely appreciate it."

Jasmine paused, and for a split moment, Severus wondered if he had perhaps annoyed her with his comment, but she eventually smirked and nodded. "Yeah, I'll ask her to have IT turn it off. I told her everyone would hate it."

Severus blinked. He had not expected that to work.

"But I was wondering," she continued. "-how do the parties usually go? Does a lot of the staff come? I haven't asked anyone else yet, I just wondered..."

He shrugged. "Couldn't tell you. I've never been," he replied, idly picking at the cardboard sleeve around his cup.

"You haven't?" Jasmine asked in return, finishing the last of her coffee and setting the empty cup on the table between them. "Why not?"

Severus leaned back in the chair to fold his arms across his chest tightly, in leiu of a good hard stretch and took a deep breath. He glanced at the doors as Dr. Amin exited through them, likely to go start his day at the hospital across the street.

"This may come as a surprise, but I'm not the most social being on the planet," He smirked when Jasmine gasped dramatically.

"You? Antisocial?" she asked, grinning. "You're right, that doescome as a surprise."

Severus rolled his eyes and she continued, though her tone was much gentler, genuine when she spoke next. "There's nothing wrong with being antisocial, Severus. People really suck."

Once again, he was visited by a moment where he did not know what he found most attractive about what she had just said. He also registered her casual use of his first name. She continued.

"I was just wondering if...since I'm still kinda new and know basically no one and...Linda is kind of _making_ me go, if-"

Oh, no.

"...It's just that you know so much more of the staff and I'd really like it-"

Oh, sweet FUCKING HELL.

"-if you'd maybe come with me? Or just come and hang out with me?"

His immediate response was no. Absolutely not. What, he was supposed to go in there, _on his own time,_ and chat merrily with his rich, asshole colleagues and their trophy wives about God only knew what? No, to all of that. He'd _much_ rather spend the night in California painting shimmery, glistening lights up into the banks of snow on the mountain that would have collected there since his visit with Potter.

However, Jasmine was already looking defeated. He felt terrible for hesitating as long as he was, but this was honestly a big one for him. Sinclair would be there...a good majority of the staff, the other doctors and nurses and everyone would be there...and he would be there, with Jasmine. _With_ Jasmine. If her silly nurse friends had already called her 'Princess' a few times, not counting the remarks Jasmine never told him about, and if Mark was starting to make snide comments of the same variety, he was absolutely sure there would be talk after this.

But it had returned. That gut feeling had returned, tugging at his insides, his heart gave a lurch at the inside of his chest cavity. This time, prepared for it subconsiously, he listened to his instincts without hesitation.

"Fine, I'll go," he replied, already feeling a bit queasy at just the thought of the thing. Meanwhile, Jasmine's eyes lit up and she gave a little bounce on the stool across from him. "On one condition..."

Her head cocked to one side, her ponytail falling over one shoulder. "What's that?"

Severus smirked.

"I'm allowed to be as drunk as I want."

For another long stretch of silence, Jasmine seemed to think on his proposal, observing him from behind squinted eyes, trying so hard not to grin, before she finally replied.

"Fine."

…...

A/N: GUYS I am posting the next chapter tonight. Since I have been late in posting (the holidays and work got away with me) and I feel so guilty I didn't have a gift for you guys, completely missed both Christmas and New Years, I will be posting the Christmas party chapter today, likely later this evening as a bonus! Plus the Christmas party chapter is important so I'm giving it a bit of special attention I think the story deserves. So I apologize for being late but I hope you had a wonderful holiday season of whatever religion or practice you follow! Or are simply enjoying your winters. I, for one, definitely needed this little break from school. Which resumes one week from today. And guys, these chapters are getting us into the meat of this story. I'm SO FREAKING STOKED for you all to see what I've got in store. It's gonna be so cool. Thank you so much for continuing to follow this story! I enjoy writing it so much, it offers me such a nice break from the real world and I absolutely love where it's heading. I'm finished with school in May then making a full return back to writing!

But seriously, the next chapter – tonight! YAY!

-QoM


	16. The Most Disappointing Time of the Year

As was typical with time, Severus found that the closer the day drew to the Christmas party, the more and more quickly it seemed to slip by. Every shift, he wondered whether that might be the night Oakes finally caught wind of his agreement to be at the party and make some stupid comment. Forunately, Jasmine had not said a word about it in the two weeks since their meeting for coffee and quite honestly, he hoped she had forgotten about it altogether. Their shifts had gotten busier as the cold weather and close quarters brought an influx of flu and pneumonia cases into the emergency room, as well as the array of usual madness- stabbings, shootings, car accidents from sliding on ice, all of which seemed sufficient enough to keep Jasmine preoccupied. Although, the shift following their chat at the coffee shop, Severus had arrived at work to find that the bright red notices had gone from the computers; she had actually seen to it.

So it was unlikely she had forgotten.

But days and shifts and nights and sleeping had blurred into one quick streak of time and suddenly, Severus was staring down the throat of the party by a distance of only two days out. Fortunately, he had been not been scheduled to work the day after, which meant he had been granted a full twenty-four hours in which to recover in peace, alone. (He wondered if perhaps Jasmine had gone above and beyond there as well.)

It was not that he was completely incapable of socializing. He had been made to attend parties, events and meetings before, in both his past life _and_ his current one. He was more than capable of having a conversation with people he did not know well. He just simply did not like it. At all. The only redeeming factors he could see in the entire thing was that Jasmine would be there with him, and he knew exactly how much liquor it took for him to reach a comfortably drunk state in which he felt more at ease, to relax his anxieties. Everything would be alright. He would hate it, yes, but it would be alright. But it was a good job he trusted Jasmine to look after his stupid ass if things somehow became _not_ alright.

At the end of a very taxing, but earlier, 2am shift, Severus had just emerged from the locker room, applied his coat and turned the corner to the garage, where he found Jasmine sitting on the bench at the end of the hall, waiting for him so they could walk to their cars together. This was a newly implemented routine of theirs and one that Severus did not dislike. On the contrary, he had grown to rather enjoy their brief chats after work. And since she almost always managed to change faster than him somehow, more often than not, he found her sitting right there on that bench, waiting, when he finished changing.

She stood up with her usual bright smile when she noticed him approaching, wincing as he dug his knot of hair from beneath the back of his coat.

"Remember your stethoscope?" she asked, glancing down at his coat pocket, her smile expanding to show teeth as he shot her a look.

The night before, so engrossed in a conversation over one of their earlier cases, he had completely forgotten it at the nurses' station and had needed to go back inside from his car to retrieve it...lest someone else _dare_ put his ear pieces into their own ears. He'd have to throw the whole stethoscope away.

He nodded, patting his coat pocket. "Yeah, I have it," he replied in a grumble, though grateful that she had been thoughtful enough to remind him.

The door to the garage swung open ahead of him as he pushed it and he was caught in the chest by a bitterly cold, breath-taking gust of air, which he braced for, while Jasmine stepped just behind him to allow his tall frame to form a barrier against that initial blast. Another recent addition to the routine.

Outside in the garage, Severus paused to note that it had begun snowing again, watching as tiny, white flecks drifted past the openings in the concrete walls, bright and somewhat luminous against the inky, black , two-in-the-morning sky.

"So, uh-" Jasmine began, emerging from behind the back of his coat, glowing pink all the way up to her hairline. She let out a purposely nonchalant little laugh and Severus' stomach clenched. "I keep forgetting to ask but...did you still want to come to the Christmas thing?" She finally asked, and despite the initial wave of awkwardness, Severus felt himself smirk, his eyebrows arching.

Kept forgetting to ask? About that? No, he sincerely doubted it.

Jasmine did not simply forget things.

Only a few weeks ago while joking around lightly at the nurses' station, she had recited, between laughter, exactly what he had first said to her, the very first words out of his mouth to her three months ago. She could remember information from a patient chart without looking, even when he purposely asked her something obscure to try and trip her up.

No, she definitely didn't forget and he'd been a fool to even hope that she would.

What he figured had happened was that she had gotten too nervous to ask and had put it off until the last moment. It was beyond probable that she had done some fact-finding with the other nurses in the meantime, likely asked them about the party and what to expect, since Severus had not exactly been a wealth of information as far as that was concerned. And to that end, he was sure that she had been asked questions about whether or not she would be coming. And if she had disclosed that she would not only be in attendance, but that he had agreed to come with her or at least join her there, he was sure there had been some comments and jokes thrown out along the shifts leading up. Graciously, Jasmine had opted not to share these with him.

He shrugged his coat across his chest as he began walking, glancing down at her past his shoulder when she joined him. "You say 'still want to come' as though I had a desire to go in the first place," he drawled in response, his eyebrow arching when Jasmine scoffed, holding up her hands.

"Hey, I never said you _have_ to come," she replied defensively. " _You_ said 'Fi-'"

Severus rolled his eyes to the ceiling of the garage and groaned. "Yes, I know what I said, and yes, I'm still coming." They had reached the back of his car and he stopped to turn and face her while she did the same. His eyebrows arched. "Although I'm going to whine and complain about it the entire time," He shrugged innocently when Jasmine's eyes narrowed. "I'll be a complete displeasure all evening, I assure you."

At this, Jasmine let out a louder laugh than usual and clapped him on the arm encouragingly, though her eyes glinted with that sinister tone they sometimes took on. "See? That's the spirit!" she exclaimed brightly. "When in doubt, just be yourself!"

And she walked away toward her car a few spaces down with a bit of a bounce while Severus' post-work brain attempted to register what she had just said. The way she was giggling, he knew there was something of an insult in there, and once it finally clinked into place, he frowned.

"Oi! Rude!" he finally called loudly at her back, though immediately swore under his breath when Jasmine stopped walking to suddenly turn and point at him, her expression surprised and gleeful. He rolled his eyes as she began to walk back toward him.

"You said it!"

"That doesn't even count..."

"Uh, yeah, it does," she countered in a very 'duh' tone of voice, holding out her hand. "You literally just said it, I heard you."

Only a few nights ago, while sitting at the nurses' station during a lull, she had very randomly asked 'why British people say 'Oi' to get someone's attention, versus 'hey'...Severus had very curtly explained that he neither knew nor found it important to know, that it was a stupid question and that he thought it was a very uncouth, obnoxious thing 'mates' say. Around that time, Oakes had chimed in to disagree, to point out that he had definitely heard Severus yell "OI'" at a nurse during an emergency on more than one occasion when he could not remember their names, he'd heard it at least one other time when caught texting on one of Dr. Prince's bad nights, and others. So Jasmine had bet him twenty dollars that he would say it at some point.

"Didn't make it very long," she commented in a low, lightly taunting voice.

"Shut up. I'm tired."

As he fished his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans, Jasmine giggled, bouncing on the balls of her shoes a few times. "I really don't understand the way your brain works," he growled, shaking his head as he slapped a crisp twenty dollar bill onto her palm. She folded it delicately and tucked it safely into her pocket before turning toward her car once more. "Is my 'accent' really that funny to you?"

With her back to him, she let out another loud laugh, tipping her head back in the process so that the tip of her crazy ponytail fell to the small of her back. Severus found himself momentarily distracted by this; her hair had grown quite a lot since she had started three months ago.

"It's not funny, it's hot!" she then called back to him over her shoulder, finally reaching her car and stopping at the trunk to turn and face him. She had the most amused, mischievous grin on her face. "And believe me, all the other girls-" Her voice raised slightly; Severus' eyes narrowed. "- _and guys_ think so too."

As she watched him from several parking spaces away, he felt a bit of warmth creeping up his neck toward his face and was grateful for the distance between them at the moment. Without even the faintest idea what to say, he simply held up his middle finger with a roll of his eyes and moved to get in his car. Before closing the door however, he heard her normal soft, echoey laugh and the quiet beep of her own car unlocking.

"Have a good night! See you tomorrow!"

Ugh. Tomorrow indeed.

Severus stood facing his bathroom mirror the following night, a towel wrapped low about his hips, arms crossed irritably across his chest. His hair lay wet and stringy over his shoulders from the shower he had just taken. Briefly, he wondered if he should attempt to wear it in some way that was different from his typical sloppy knot, but then again, simply by being there, he was stepping well out of his comfort zone. He figured the usual knot would likely be most familiar and make his presence less obvious and out of place. With a groan, he left the bathroom, to let his hair at least partially air-dry before he put it up.

Choosing his clothes had been an easy task; nearly everything he owned was either black or some other dark shade of color, therefore easy to match. After a quick glance through his limited closet, he selected what he needed and dressed in his bedroom, glancing at his phone while he passed a hand along the front of his black dress shirt, feeling the buttons slide into place on their own. Jasmine had not called nor messaged him about any particular time she expected him, or more importantly if he was supposed to meet her at the hospital or pick her up...like an actual-

As if on cue, as though he had known it was coming, the phone lit up, buzzing loudly against the hard surface, the name 'Jasmine' across the top of the screen. His stomach did a backflip as he simultaneously reached for the phone _and_ gave a nudge of his wand toward the open doorway, where he heard a bottle of whiskey clank against the table on its way.

Time to prepare.

"Hello?" he answered, holding the phone between his ear and shoulder momentarily to catch the bottle and a glass tumbler as they reached him. He poured enough for one shot, set the bottle down and drank the glass in one before Jasmine spoke.

"Hey!" she greeted. Severus' eyebrow arched as his ears picked up the muffled music and voices in the background of the call. She must have already been at the hospital.

Thank god.

He sincerely was not ready to pull up and have Jasmine get out of his car, _again,_ right in front of Sinclair. He was not sure why he felt so strongly that she not see them together, as friends, as anything, but something told him to keep it low-key around her for the time being. So he listened.

Smirking, Severus picked up the phone from his shoulder and stood facing the mirror over his dresser. "I was just wondering when you'd remember to tell me where to be," he said smoothly, his voice rich. He had not forgotten the comment she had made the night before in an attempt to embarrass him.

Jasmine, however, did not skip a beat and replied, "Well, I'm already at the hospital," She spoke somewhat loudly, perhaps over the din of the music behind her. "I came early to help Linda with a few things. Are you going to head over here soon?"

Severus looked up from where he had been inspecting a new nick in his wand to his reflection in the mirror. "Er-..."

Was it time already?

"Yes, I was planning to leave shortly," he finally managed to spit out. One shot of whiskey was clearly not going to cut it. The glass bottle rose from the surface of his dresser to pour another measure, a double this time. "Where should I meet you once I'm there?"

"Oh, just go to the normal parking garage," she answered brightly. He could just picture her excited expression, holding her own phone to her face on the other end. "That way you can come through the back halls to the main atrium if you want."

Despite his valiant effort to remain upbeat while on the phone and sound as though he was perfectly alright with this, he could not help but hesitate, squinting slightly at his own reflection.

"Quick question, if I may..." He leaned forward, to rest his elbows on the dresser, lowering his voice. "...Do I _have_ to?"

When he fully expected Jasmine to grow a little impatient over his continued negativity toward the whole thing, he found himsef pleasantly surprised when she simply laughed.

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to do, Severus, that's the beauty of being a human being," she said placidly into the phone. He blinked, slowly rising to his full height again. "You don't have to come if you truly don't want to, but...it would mean a lot to me if you did."

Fuck.

So he _had_ to go.

And forty-five minutes later, he found himself pulling his car into the garage at Boston General, incensed that he was not being paid for this social time, only to find that it was nearly full. This sight was so odd to him, being that the only times he typically saw the inside of this garage was well after everyone else had gone home and before anyone had arrived the next morning. Seeing it so full made him wonder how packed it was inside the hospital if a vast majority of the staff, plus their significant others were in attendance. A small prickle of anxiety broke through his mildly buzzed haze of indifference.

Fortunately, there was a physician's parking space open somewhat close to the door, so he parked and very briefly went over his appearance in his mind, looking for anything that would stand out. He had left his wand at home since he would be drinking, his hair was its usual amount of messy with shorter pieces hanging loose in his face. He was wearing a scarf temporarily but not a tie of any sort, opting instead to leave the top few buttons of the shirt undone. Ties were one of the more idiotic things Muggles liked to wear frequently. They not only looked stupid but also felt a bit like wearing a ready-made noose for several hours at a time. Underdressed or not, he flat out refused to wear a tie.

After chewing a mint hastily to neutralize any possible lingering scent of alcohol on his breath, Severus finally got out of his car and locked it, but paused there for just a moment.

He could do it. He could leave right now, perhaps implant a memory of a nice, perfectly platonic evening in Jasmine's mind...

 _"-but it would mean a lot to me..."_

With a huff of a breath that escaped him as a cloud of condensation, he pocketed his keys determinedly and moved toward the same employee entrance he used on any other night. Forunately, he had thought to bring his badge in order to gain access to this part of the building, but he immediately pocketed the badge after using it, knowing it would not look good to lose it and need to request another. Nor for any random person to find a picture identification of himself bearing the name 'Severus Prince, MD' with access to an entire hospital.

The low, muffled, bass of distant music was immediately audible as he stepped inside the building, removing his coat and scarf while he walked. He paused briefly inside the locker room to leave his things there for the time being, deciding he would simply follow the sound until he found the party. Perhaps he did not know the hospital as well as he thought he did and would get lost and wander for a few hours. He was technically _there,_ so it would count.

No, unfortunately, he knew exactly how to get to the 'atrium' Jasmine had mentioned, knew it was on the back side of the hospital, and that it was fairly close to him. Hence the music being so loud.

His gentle buzz was fading fast, but there was a good chance he would be able to locate a 'bar' soon. Hopefully, Jasmine would find him quickly and involve him in a deep conversation, one which kept others from interrupting to speak with him. Severus did not make himself present at any of these sort of events, was rarely in his office anymore, thanks to Sinclair, and exclusively worked a third, middle of the night shift. He had a feeling that his presence might be a bit of a 'sore thumb' sort of situation.

As he turned a corner into an adjoining hallway, he nearly jumped in surprise; the entire length of it had been strung with lights, the windows of the offices that lined it plastered with wrapping paper. The effect was so striking that Severus came to a halt at the corner and swore audibly. He found himself immediately sober, what little was left of the alcohol in his blood evaporating, but he continued walking, scowling at the electric strings of lights in distaste as they passed over his head.

His lights were _way_ cooler.

He so wished he could show her.

The sound of approaching footsteps brought a desire to hastily go Invisible but Severus resisted, bracing for whomever he was about to encounter. It was certainly a man; he could tell by the foot-

Oakes appeared at the end of the hallway, turning his head as he too must have heard someone approaching. But when he saw Severus there, striding toward him, his eyes widened and he let out a laugh.

"The hell are you doing here?" he asked loudly, grinning and looking genuinely pleased to see him.

Severus rolled his eyes, though he felt relief wash over him that first person he encountered that night was someone he knew more closely than the others.

"My presence was requested," he replied dully, continuing toward the music, which had become clearer, closer, louder. Oakes turned to walk alongside him, completely abandoning whatever reason had brought him to the hallway.

"By who?" he probed, grinning. "Sinclair?"

"No, by her-" Severus caught himself; he nearly forgot not everyone knew their connection. "Jasmine asked me to meet her for this a few weeks ago."

They had turned yet another corner and entered a vast, tall room, the 'atrium' as Jasmine had called it. The mock-marble floors had been buffed to a blinding shine, round high-top tables placed strategically throughout and an absolutely massive Christms tree (Likely plastic. Pathetic.) stood sentinel at the base of the staircase leading to the second floor. And as expected, most obnoxiously, the room was full of people. While it was comforting to know he might be less noticed with a thicker crowd, he felt himself a bit suffocated by the thought of mingling amongst the tables, squeezing between other people.

Oakes, who had already been there, did not react to the sight of the crowded room but instead needled him further.

"And you said yes?" he asked, a note of genuine surprise in his voice. "You agreed to come...because she asked you to?"

Teeth clenched in the back of his mouth, Severus inhaled deeply and finally stepped further into the room, making a bee-line for one of the makeshift bars that had been set up in a back corner of the room.

"Let me put it this way," he eventually said, glancing over as Mark rounded his side at the bar. "I'm certainly not here because I want to be. Double whiskey." he added the last bit to the young man on the opposite side of the bar from him.

However, as he turned to accept the glass, he heard Oakes grunt a laugh under his breath, felt him nudge his arm with his elbow and Severus scowled up in time to see him nod toward the opposite side of the room.

"Sure about that?" Oakes asked but as he turned to look, he found himself completely lost for a reply, witty or otherwise.

Oakes had nodded his head toward the stairs because Jasmine was coming down them. And she looked absolutely stunning.

Most immediately noticeable was her hair, even over the form-fitting, knee-length cranberry dress and heels she wore. She had somehow managed to tame her curls and straighten them into a thick, sleek mane of blonde hair which caught the overhead lights and glistened like so many miniscule diamonds. It fell easily to the small of her back, the very tips of it resting on the delicate curve there.

He exhaled a breath he did not realize he had been holding as he forced himself to look away and managed to roll his eyes at Mark's insinuation.

At the foot of the stairs, Jasmine had apparently been sucked into the crowd in the middle of the room but Severus did not seek her out yet. He was positive she would find him sooner rather than later. He took a deep sip of his whiskey while Mark asked the bartender for another beer.

"So, like-" he began, twisting off the top of the bottle to toss the cap in a trash can at the side of the bar. "-do you know if she's seeing anyone? Or..."

The hair on the back of Severus' neck prickled, but he did not look over, opting instead for another heavy sip of liquor. "She doesn't like you," he stated baldly, skipping all the formalities, straight down to the root of Oakes' question and smirking when he scoffed.

"What? Yes, she does."

"She's nice to you. There's a difference." Severus explained, his smirk expanding when a couple about twenty yards from him parted and Jasmine's side profile was made visible to him. She was smiling ear to ear, genuinely enjoying a conversation with a female doctor he knew only by sight. Her _hair_...He simply could not get over how beautiful it looked and howbadly he wanted to touch it. Consciously, he pushed his free, non-drink-bearing hand into his pocket.

Must not touch what isn't ours.

At last, she emerged from the crowd and approached the bar where he and Oakes had posted themselves until further notice, smiling the most beautiful smile he had ever seen on her face. She ignored Oakes at first, looking at him directly, her teeth dazzling.

"Hi," she greeted him simply, though the excitement radiating from her was practically palpable. She was _so_ glad that he was there.

Honestly, seeing her then, so was he.

"Hi," he replied in an equally simple way, smirking as she flushed pink even beneath the light layer of makeup she was wearing.

It was not at all overdone but her eye makeup was immaculate and suited her eyes perfectly, exaggerating the icy blue there with deep, dark browns to match her dress. A warm, red wine color had been added to her lips, contrasting nicely against her white, healthy teeth.

Severus was not sure how it had not registered with him that Jamsine might dress up for this thing, especially when he himself had done the same. What, had he expected to come to the party and find her in the usual uniform scrubs he saw her in almost every day? Perhaps so, because the sight of her all together, up close, in person, right then as she smiled warmly at Oakes was making his chest pound as though someone was beating on it. Pushing past this, he raised his eyebrows when she turned her gaze back to him.

"You look really nice!" she complimented freely and Severus found himself momentarily envious of how easy it was for her to just... _say_ something like that. When he hesitated, she continued, graciously saving him from any obligation to thank her or return a comment on how _she_ looked. He had not yet found the right words and refused to utter any of those floating around his brain currently. "Have you guys been-"

"OH MY GOD, WHAT'S THIS?"

Severus felt his skin crawl, his teeth ground together and the hair all along his arms stood on end, even beneath his jacket and shirt. The calm, blissful haze Jasmine's arrival had swept over him dissipated instantly.

It was her.

How had he not sensed her presence sooner?

Sinclair was wearing the reddest dress he had ever seen; some glittery thing that poofed out at her waist and made obvious her level of pure, unfiltered weirdness. Her curly, wild hair (which had recognized a while ago as the same type of hair Jasmine had) had been tied up with gold tinsel into one of her ridiculous up-do's that sat on the top of her head. Severus' jaw went slack when she drew close enough for him to see that she was wearing tree ornaments, regular-sized, round Christmas ornaments, as earrings.

"Is this really Dr. Prince at the Christmas party?!" she repeated herself shrilly as she drew close enough to clasp her hands around his upper arm. He blinked, slowly twisting his arm within her grip as she stared up at him from behind her thick-framed glasses, her breath reeking of champagne. "I heard you _never_ come to the hospital parties!"

Behind Sinclair, Jasmine flushed scarlet and Oakes had needed to walk away entirely to prevent himself from erupting with laughter.

And Severus was fighting the temptation to press his hand to Sinclair's forehead and say the word 'Stupefy'. Just to see how Jasmine would react. He could alter her memory if needed...

With great effort, he refrained and simply shrugged, draining the last of his glass and glaring at Jasmine.

"It was difficult to say no," he replied without looking at Sinclair, but smirking as Jasmine attempted to look at every single thing in the room except him.

"Well, I'm so glad you're here!" Sinclair practically shouted, finally releasing his arm to pat it lamely a few times. "I've been meaning to thank you for bringing _this one_ -"

At this, _finally,_ Jasmine rushed forward and physically grabbed her aunt, turning her away from him toward the crowd of people. "Linda, someone over there is looking for you. I think you have to use the mic soon to welcome everyone or something."

Liar.

He could have kissed her.

Confused at the abrupt turn and instructions, his half-buzzed 'boss' walked forward determinedly into the throng of people, though immediately lost track and stumbled into a spirited conversation with one of the doctor's wives.

Severus shook his head, feeling much more at ease with the aid of that last glass, the alcohol hitting his blood just in time. "You've really got to do something about her," he commented dully.

Jasmine was returning to her normal, faded Californian shade and managed a distracted laugh as she turned to the bartender. "Just a vodka tonic and another of whatever he had, please," she asked politely before glancing up at him. "You should try living with her."

Severus, distracted by what she'd said, accepted the glass from her without acknowledging it. "I'd rather not, thanks, but that reminds me," He paused to watch Jasmine take a sip of her drink; her lips left a print on the glass as they puckered at the edge. His brain jammed. "Er-"

Okay. Can't look at her lips.

"Why do you live with her? It's been three months, if not more that you've been here from what I understand," He felt he had moved past his lapse in cognitive function rather smoothly. Jasmine did not seem to notice anything as she gave a shrug of her shoulders and randomly, he noticed her delicate collarbones move with the motion, exposed by the wide neck of her tasteful dress. These were little things her usual scrubs prevented him from noticing and he found it all incredibly distracting.

"I was kinda just trying to save up for a bit before I got a place on my own," she explained. "Linda hasn't been charging me rent so I could save as much as I could, so I can't really complain about living with her," She paused to shrug again. "But I've already been looking at places, so hopefully right after the new year I'll be out of her hair...literally."

Severus grunted an appreciative laugh but nodded his head, having genuinely listened to every word she had just said and feeling rather proud of himself for it. "I'm glad to hear it. I'm sure it will be nice to be on your own again."

At that moment, a loud, obnoxious call of "JASMINE!" rang out from somewhere behind him and Severus rolled his eyes while she waved excitedly over his shoulder in return to whomever had yelled.

"Rebecca and and six others incoming," she muttered quietly, finally turning her head to look up at him. Severus felt his stomach do a thing that had nothing to do with Rebecca as he watched her eyes widen jokingly with mock urgency. "I'll distract them! You make a run for it."

Severus shook his head with a quiet laugh but did take up her invitation to disappear and stepped forward to pass her in the direction of the glass doors. However, as he turned sideways to pass beside her, he leaned down ever so slightly and lowered his voice. "Thank you for the drink and you look lovely tonight."

Sensory neurons fired synapses to the receptors in her skin cells and tiny bumps rose up all along her arms, which she rubbed away briskly using both hands on opposite arms. "Thank you," she replied hastily, cheeks glowing pink, just in time for Severus to walk away from her and for Rebecca and the others to reach her.

He smirked to himself as he approached the glass doors through which he had seen Oakes exit a few minutes earlier. Maybe this was not as bad as he had been expecting. Or at least, that's what his second double whiskey thought.

Tall, ornate propane heaters had been set up outside for those brave enough to venture forth and Severus found himself perfectly comfortable without his coat as he stepped out, where he spotted Oakes standing off to the side. The younger doctor looked up from his phone and nodded a greeting.

"Escaped her?" he asked, looking back down at the screen in his hand while Severus swirled the remaining amber liquid in his glass.

"Rescued, actually."

Oakes sighed with a huff of annoyance and locked his phone to drop it into his pocket. He ran a flustered hand through the top of his hair before looking to Severus, who had watched all of this from his periphery. He knew what was coming.

"You don't happen to have a cigarette, do you?"

With a heavy scowl, Severus looked over from surveying the frosty parking lot. "Dear God, man, I'm a _doctor_ , I don't smoke-"

"Bullshit, I know you smoke," Oakes argued, watching while Severus thought for a moment or two before producing a single cigarette from his own, personally-rolled stash at home from the inside chest pocket of his suit jacket. Then he realized he did not have a lighter. He typically lit them with his bare hand or a snap of his fingers, with Magic, with a neat little charm he'd learned long ago but Oakes was staring directly at him. Defeated, he rolled his eyes and pulled out a second cigarette.

"You can have it if you trade me a light."

…...

Jasmine's mind was spinning and the alcohol certainly was not helping. First of all, she looked and felt fantastic. She had not been able to straighten her hair in what felt like ages thanks to the beating her skull took with the Jack Daniel's bottle, though this had been something of a blessing in disguise. She had been shocked to see how long it truly was when she had flat-ironed it earlier in preparation for the party. A haircut would be in order soon but it looked perfect for that night, with her dress. And with the amount of hair on her head, it was a bit like having an extra layer of warmth so she could wear the dress without a sweater or anything else to dampen its effect.

Secondly, Dr. Prince, Severus, whoever he was, was at the party. He had come because she had asked him to, had not attempted to cleverly pick up a shift for that night on the excuse that 'so-and-so had asked him to', as she had half expected him to do. Nothing like that. And he had actually worn somethig nice! Some deep part of her, the part that had been overthinking this evening since the moment she had mentioned it to him, had thought that he might show up in jeans and simply a nice shirt, but no. He looked crisp and clean cut, even with the hair, his suit fitting him as though it had been made for him only a few hours earlier. He even _smelled_ nice. Jasmine was not sure if perhaps he always smelled of cedar and some warm spice she could not put a name to, or if it was simply lost in the many, varied, much stronger smells of the emergency room. Either way, she had caught a scent of it as he had passed her and leaned down to speak directly next to her ear.

Not fair.

Jasmine was not listening to a single word any of the nurses around her were saying, though she chimed in here and there where appropriate. The inside of her head had gone fuzzy and warm and she smiled for no reason whatsoever.

He said she looked _lovely._ What a sweet word.

She would have to return the compliment. Her earlier, hasty exclamation that he looked 'nice' did not do him justice at all and had merely been a place holder until she could think of something more intelligent-sounding than 'really hot'.

The longer she stood there, the more interested she became in finding out where he had gone off too and less interested in listening to the same chit chat she heard every other day at work. So she politely and quietly excused herself, moving off toward the glass doors. She had a distinct feeling he was not in the middle of the room, mingling and chatting with his colleagues, though she hesitated at the glass, resting her hands on the handle. It looked freezing outside, even with the propane heaters on.

But she knew he was out there somewhere, and figured she could hug one of the heated poles if she got cold, so she pushed on the lever and stepped out. At the same time, a puff of smoke appeared on the air, originating from around a shallow corner. A drip of annoyance joined her bloodstream as she walked boldly out further, until first Oakes then Severus became visible in conversation, holding their drinks with one hand, a cigarette each in the other. Oakes had just brought it to his lips to take a drag but spotted her in his periphery and spun around, hiding the cigarette behind his back stupidly and nudging Severus at the same time.

He glanced over his shoulder and laughed, a puff of smoke leaving his lungs on the breath, giving him a distinct, dragon-like appearance. Jasmine's fists met her hips and her weight shifted to one leg.

" _What_ are you guys doing out here?" she asked, in the most Linda-esque way she possibly could, just to watch Severus' eyes narrow as he very subtly rolled the lit cherry from his cigarette before clenching it in his palm.

Oakes had apparently just been relieved to find that he had not been caught by Sinclair, as he took another drag from the cigarette. "Getting a breath of fresh air," he replied smartly. Jasmine's weight shifted again; she noticed Oakes' eyes follow the curve of her hip as she did so.

Not a chance in hell. It was tempting to tell him that right then and there.

Instead, she blinked slowly, processing his choice of words.

"Getting a breath of _fresh_ -"

She paused, shook her head then glanced at Severus, who shrugged innocently.

"Don't look here," he defended. "It's him that's smoking, not me."

"Oh, whatever! I _just_ saw you with a cigarette-" She was cut off again when Severus opened both of his hands to show that they were not only empty, but clean, no trace of ash or soot on his skin. She frowned but ignored this for the time being, to look back at Oakes.

"You're disgusting," she finished before the cold finally got to her and she turned to walk back inside carefully in her heels on the slick concrete. How embarrassing would it be if she had slipped or stumbled right then, after teasing them for smoking? God, they'd never _, ever_ let her hear the end of that.

"See?" Severus asked of Mark, watching as Jasmine retreated to the warmth.

"She was talking to both of us."

"And yet, she only looked at you. Weird, that."

Inside, warm once more, Jasmine stood toward the back of the room, to the left of the stage, where her aunt was about to make a spectacular fool of herself in front of most of the hospital. A tiny corner of her mind felt a bit disappointed to have caught DOCTOR Prince smoking, but...she supposed she couldn't really blame him. He had warned her that he did not like social events and she knew plenty of people, including her ex, who only smoked when they drank. So maybe that was the case with him as well. She would ask about that later.

Just as she had been about to hope he would not stay isolated out there all night, she jumped with a gasp when she shifted ever so slightly and bumped into someone standing directly behind her. She turned hastily to apologize but was hit with another wave of that warm, inviting scent she had noticed on him earlier as her nose nearly made abrupt contact with his chest. Taking a quick step back, she looked up at him and opened her mouth to speak but he shook his head, putting a finger to his lips.

"Hold on one moment," he murmured, his eyes trained over the top of her head to the raised platform behind her. "I really don't want to miss this." A sly grin lifted the corner of his lips.

Jasmine wondered what he meant for only a second before the tell-tale squeal of a mishandled microphone broke through the music. Jasmine's eyes rolled to the top of her head and she turned to find her aunt on the 'stage', clutching a flute of champagne with her free hand.

Oh, no.

"HAPPY HOLIDAYS!" She shouted at a volume that likely rendered her audible to every patient in the hospital. This proclamation was followed by dead silence.

Jasmine was standing so close to Severus that she could feel his chest give a slight heave against her shoulder blades in his attempt not to laugh out loud. She felt a giggle of her own well up inside her and she bit down hard on her bottom lip to hold it in.

"I'm SOOOOO glad everyone could make it for our little Chris- uh- Holiday party, I mean what a treat, _right?"_ Linda's New Englander accent was stronger than ever and she sounded downright sloppy.

At this, there was some smattered applause and cheering but Linda waved her hand with the microphone as if to silence it.

"No, no, I just...I really want you all to know how much it means to have been welcomed here so warmly this year and..." she paused and Jasmine's cringe deepened. "I just feel so at home here. So...thank you! Happy holidays and get home safe!"

"YOU TOO!"

Someone had shouted it from the other side of the room and everyone laughed, breaking the tension, but Jasmine had seen enough. She turned to Severus, who was still watching Linda dismount the stage with help, a deeply amused look on his handsome face. There was a long moment of silence, while he examined her exasperated expression before he finally spoke.

"She pulled it together there at the end," he offered somewhat kindly, though it could not have been clearer that he was attempting very hard not to laugh. When she continued to glare at him, he eventually rolled his eyes, tilting his head toward the back of the room. "Come on."

Jasmine followed, unsure where they were going and not really caring either, just as long as she could escape before she had to witness more of her aunt.

…...

Severus was not really sure where he was going either. All he knew was that he had wanted to see Sinclair make an utter fool of herself on that stage and then get away from the crowd again, preferably _with_ Jasmine. As they reached the edge of the crowd, however, it seemed he did not really need a destination as she continued toward the entrance to the brightly lit hallway without hesitation. It seemed she was trying to put some real distance between herself and her aunt.

"She'll be fun getting home tonight," he commented, pushing his hands into his pockets as Jasmine slowed her pace, once the music had faded a bit and they had gained some ground. "I assume you drove her for that reason."

"Yeah," Jasmine breathed with a laugh, tucking a bit of hair behind her ear to reveal a simple, dangling gold earring, one that accented the tan notes in her skin and formed a pleasing angle with her delicate jawline. Severus looked away as they continued walking.

'Lovely' had not been sufficient.

"Hey!" she exclaimed suddenly, having apparently remembered something, and stopped walking. "You don't smell like smoke!"

Severus grinned, pausing midstep to turn and look at her. He shrugged.

"Of course I don't," he replied simply. "I told you I wasn't."

Jasmine stomped her heel, playing her usual game of attempting to look stern and not grin or laugh at the same time. "Yes, you were! I saw you!"

"I showed you my hands. They were empty if I remember correctly." he countered, following her as she finally continued walking, ambling along the electring string-lit hallway.

"Yeah, well you made it disappear somehow then because I definitely saw it," she mumbled, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye as they passed through the hallway and into another one. "Honestly though, do you smoke?"

Her question was clearly in search of an honest answer and Severus had already been a complete idiot by Vanishing his cigarette butt directly in front of her and she had _noticed,_ more importantly. He felt she deserved the truth.

"Occasionally," he replied, turning his head to gauge her reaction. "After a bad day, when drinking...However, I certainly would not call it a habit by any means, if that's what you're asking."

Next to him, heels clicking rhythmically, Jasmine nodded, a smile returning to her face where it beloged. "That's not so bad. Though it is gross and I don't know how you don't smell like it."

They had turned just one more corner, stepped through a set of double doors, into which Jasmine punched four numbers, and found themselves facing the nurses' station in the emergency room. _Their_ nurses' station. Though the emergency room was bustling, this back desk station was empty; he and Oakes were two of the only doctors to use it. Jasmine rounded the corner of the desk to sit lightly in his usual rolling chair.

"I roll my own," he attempted to explain that phenomenon to quell some of her suspicion from watching his cigarette disappear before her eyes. "The tobacco I use has very little odor."

A placid, comfortable smile had spread to show her dazzling teeth once more and she merely looked up at him across the desk for the longest moment. And Severus looked back, very much enjoying the sight of her looking so stunning in his chair. "You are such an interesting person, you know that?" she eventually asked, cocking her head to one side.

Blinking to refocus his attention, Severus frowned slightly and leaned on his forearms on the desk before him.

"How so?" he asked as off-handedly and unconcerned as he possibly could, though he found he had to look away from her momentarily. She was too god damn pretty for her own good, her eyes so clear and expressive.

She shrugged, her exquisite collarbones rising and falling once more.

"I don't know," she answered unhelpfully. "You're just...different. I don't really know what it is."

Severus felt his stomach tighten. He wasn't really sure whether that was a compliment or not, and if it was, he was not sure he liked that she noticed he was different. His goal in living amongst Muggles was to blend in. And for the most part, he felt he succeeded at that. Yes, he had been getting cocky with the Magic lately and really needed to stop it but otherwise, he felt he blended in pretty well.

"It's only because I'm English," he explained dismissively, as if people made this mistake about him often. "People immediately assume you're an interesting person if you're from somewhere else."

"That is true," Jasmine agreed thoughtfully, mulling over his words. "But that's not it with you. It's something else."When he frowned, she laughed and reached out to rest her hand on his. "Not anything bad, just different, in a good way-"

No, not in a good way.

Severus stood up to his full height, scowling slightly as snippets from his past zoomed through his mind like a video in rapid rewind, unexpectedly, unasked for. A streak of green light, two hated words and the loss of a dear mentor, guide and friend. At his own hand. The cruel, horrible, hateful person he had once been, the person he was still attempting to overcome...She had no idea what he'd been like in the past, in a different lifetime. And if she did...She would never speak to him again.

When she had touched his hand, just that one small gesture, he had felt a warmth, a palpable wave of bubbly, giggly happiness flow through him from the places her skin had touched his; her energy. It was beautiful, comforting and peaceful, like the Muggle equivalent of Phoenix song. The strength of it filled his chest and made his heart pound.

But that is the moment he realized.

He maybe, _sort of_ had a bit of a thing for Jasmine. It pained him to think it, as it was the first time Severus had even considered an attraction to someone other than Lily Evans since her death and especially since moving to the United States. While slightly embarrassing for reasons beyond him, Severus found it encouraging that he could even feel that sort of thing toward another person anymore. That he could stand there and look at Jasmine, wanting nothing more than to kiss her; if anything, just to shut her up from going on about him. This meant his heart was healing. It was working.

But Jasmine?

He sighed, feeling his own expression morph with frustration.

"So I wanted to tell you, you look really handsome tonight. All black definitely suits you," When he did not seem to have a reply, she added playfully, "Although I'd sorta hoped you would wear your hair down tonight." Severus snapped out of his thoughts to focus on her. She was, afterall, still sitting there before him presently, looking so elegant. No reason he should not enjoy her company.

He grunted a laugh, rolling his shoulders to rid himself of his suit jacket and pick up his doctors' coat, which had been laying across the the back of the seat behind Jasmine, abandoned and undisturbed from the night before. He applied it casually over his black slacks and dress shirt and took a seat across from her at Oakes' usual place.

"I don't wear my hair down," he replied, resting his chin in one hand to watch her turn toward him. "It's too long and too much but I can't part with it, I'm afraid."

Jasmine smiled at her lap momentarily, leaning forward slightly on his chair so that most of her hair fell over one shoulder. One squinted eye glanced up at him with hesitation.

"Can I ask you something?"she asked in a low, soft voice.

Severus paused, his own eyes squinting. That question in itself was tricky. _Could_ she ask him something?

"I suppose...?" he responded with trepidation.

Jasmine took a deep breath, clearly steeling herself for something. But when she spoke, her voice did not waver, and she looked at him directly.

"I took a semester off from school to deal with Jeremy and all of that...move here..." she began, her tone gaining confidence with every syllable. "Well, I go back in a few weeks, to the nursing school just over here off Kensington. It's my last semester before my residency so I have to be working in a hospital, practicing under a mentor..." She paused only then to look away briefly. "...a licensed physician, so I was wondering if maybe you could do that for me? It would be about four months but you won't have to do much, just sign papers and do a review at the end."

Severus was not sure what to say, once again lost for words. It came as a complete surprise to him that Jasmine had been enrolling in school already, had been acccepted, and even more surprising that he had not known about it. Deep down, at first sight, he was honored, flattered that she would ask him to do such a thing for her, but then again, it made sense didn't it? He was already teaching and 'mentoring' her in a way; with this, he would just have an extra paper or two to initial and sign.

Somewhere over the past fifteen or so minutes, a heavy weight had sunk into his stomach but he ignored it for the time being and nodded. "Sure. But it's down to you to do the paperwork. I'm only signing."

The most ridiculous smile split Jasmine's face, her eyes lit up like fireworks and Severus found that he had suddenly and abruptly hit his limit on how long he wanted to be there. He was not sure why, but an odd weariness had rolled over him, perhaps from the effects of the liquor wearing off, or perhaps because he had finally acknowledged the thing he had been trying to ignore for the past several weeks, the elephant in the room, so to speak.

He once again had feelings for a girl he couldn't have.

Fantastic.

It was definitely time to go home and maybe, most likely, drink himself to sleep.

…...

A/N: I AM SO SORRY! Literally minutes after I posted the last chapter, my computer died and seven whole pages of this chapter was GONE. LOST FOREVER. Guys, I was so mad. So I had to start all over, and obviously it took me a minute to get caught up and perfect it. But yes, this chapter did end abruptly and we will see the reason for that coming up in the next few chapters. But I think we can all guess that the best is still yet to come.

Also, would like to give a formal explanation of my love of the 'slow burn'. I really try to keep my stories realistic and I don't believe love happens in three months. So please be patient with this story. I have a sincere dislike for when stories rush into the sexy stuff too quickly to be realistic. Remember that they're still getting to know each other!

Another note, I start my final semester of school on Monday and will be taking 8 classes to graduate in May. So my free time is going to be few and far between but I promise to stay updating this story as often as possible! I am absolutely not giving up on it because we are literally right at the part I've been waiting to write since I first got the idea for the story. So I hope you guys can stick it out with me and hang in there until the next chapter!

Thank you sooooooo much for the kind reviews! I appreciate them all so much and they really truly make my day! And of course, feel free to send me a message privately if you're shy!

-QoM


	17. VooDoo

Severus glanced up from his spiked, slanted handwriting as Jasmine entered the nurses' station from the back hallway, where she had retreated a few minutes prior to take a personal call. She huffed as she passed behind his chair, before dropping heavily into the one opposite him, in Oakes' usual place. Irritation was radiating from her like waves of heat, but he could not stop himself from confirming, "It's broken, isn't it?"

He asked this in a low voice and looked back to the record he was writing on, attempting to hide his smirk. Another indignant sigh of impatience escaped her.

"Of course it's _broken,"_ She answered him in a hot snap of a tone, one which caused Severus to look up from the record again to raise his eyebrows at her. She stared back at him defiantly, arms crossed so tightly, she could have been wearing an invisible straight jacket.

"I told you you'd break it," he stated very matter-of-factly after a pointed beat of silence, glaring jokingly at her in return. "If you wash half your wardrobe every time-"

At this, Jasmine gave a little bounce of frustration in Oakes' chair, forehead furrowed in a frown. "I do not wash _half_ my clothes _every_ time-"

"Oh, only when company is over. Right," he interrupted sarcastically, a nasty grin on his face. She rolled her eyes and turned back to the computer.

Around a month ago, he had gone over to her new apartment for the first time, on a promise to help her study for her midterm exams, though she had hardly needed the help. That night, while absorbed in reading one of her midterm papers on the differences between 12 different antibiotics, Severus had looked up to see a massive pile of laundry atop a pair of legs walking from her bedroom to the in-unit washer and dryer. He remembered asking her if she intended to wash all of that at once. She had replied with a causal 'Yeah,' in a very ' _duh_ ' sort of voice as she stood on tip-toe, struggling to stuff everything in. Severus had listened to the washer rock violently a short while after she had started it and wondered how long it would be before she broke it.

Apparently, about a month.

It turned out, none to his surprise, that Jasmine was a fantastic student, one of those that devoted themselves to top marks in all of their classes. Homework with her was constant, but Severus admired her determination to stay ahead of her work, organized and on schedule. This type of student had been his favorite to teach. Rarely, if ever, had a late assignment, who actually _studies_ for exams and tests… He had also learned that she understood far more than he realized she did, far more than she let on, once he had looked over some of her nursing coursework and after proof-reading a few papers for her. However, that night at her apartment had been a bit of an eye-opener for him, as far as who Jasmine was outside of the hospital. And he had not been disappointed.

For one thing, she was a fairly neat person, which Severus had found pleasing to discover about her. She had only moved into the apartment in late January, so she had not had much time to get it too dirty. But he had been unsurprised, again, to find that she liked to live clean. He would never like to work with a nurse, nor be friends with someone who lived like a slob. Aside from a few stray dishes in the sink and half empty water glasses, there was not much clutter.

She had more artwork, posters and music than books, aside from nursing and medical texts, which had been given their own, singular bookshelf. The artwork and posters, even whole stretches of fabric had been hung everywhere throughout the place, with the living room as the hot spot. There was barely a square foot of wall space that she had not decorated with lights or a poster or picture. He supposed there had been some sort of theme to it, and had he not been somewhat anxious to be there, he would have looked more closely. But it was the first time he had been to her place, and he still felt somewhat…weird. He'd get a better look next time.

Presently, Jasmine was being quiet and annoyed, so he pushed a bit more gently, arranging his tone to sound sincere versus mocking. "Are they bringing you a new one?" he asked in his most charming, proper chap, English voice. She seemed to soften slightly.

"Yeah," she answered on what was a noticeably calmer exhale. "He said hopefully tomorrow, so…" Her shoulders rose and sank with a shrug before she smiled brightly. "It's ok though! I've only been wearing these scrubs and underwear for like three days so, that's fine."

At this, Severus laughed deeply, genuinely, as he returned to his notes. This was one thing that had changed over the past four months. He no longer attempted to hide how funny he found Jasmine. She kept him endlessly, untiringly entertained with her antics, with her bizarre comments and questions, the way she looked at people who annoyed her when they could not see her…Everything about her was amusing to him. Jasmine of course mockingly chastised him for laughing and poking fun at her, but she did not realize just how beneficial her sense of humor was to him.

After the Christmas party, the one at which Severus had claimed recognition of his feelings for her, identified it for what it was, he had gone home feeling defeated, like a chained dog whipped back into place, into solitary confinement, outside looking in. That night, glaring daggers into the fireplace, his mind running circles around itself, Severus had dissected and sliced open every single reason he could never be with Jasmine. It had felt like a mental exsanguination, digging into those distant, hard-forgotten wounds. And the memories attached to them. His history and the twelve-year gap in their ages notwithstanding, Jasmine was just too… _good_ for him. She was one of the happiest people he had ever met, the most positive and radiant human being, always smiling and seeing the best in things.

And he was a grumpy asshole who had seen far too much of life for his own good. Not to mention the fact that he had facilitated the death of several people and had personally killed someone, regardless of the circumstances.

She was also a Muggle.

That night, on his couch, alone, consumed by the fire, he had decided that there was absolutely nothing, _nothing_ to done for it but to forget about it. She was a delight to work with, a very kind and considerate friend but nothing more to him. Whatever attraction he felt for her, he had caught it in its infancy and felt lucky that he was able to head it off early. It was reassuring to know that he could still feel those sort of things toward another person, more particularly, a woman other than Lily Evans. But he could not let it go further, grow and fester, nor allow himself to be distracted by it. Yes, he still thought she was wildly attractive and could not imagine how her ex-fiancé had ever done _anything_ to harm her, but these were purely platonic opinions.

The week following the Christmas party had been one of the longest weeks he could remember experiencing in quite some time. Jasmine must have picked up on how odd he was acting toward her, how much quicker he got tired and cranky, the return of his nastier comments and retorts. The general decrease in what little friendliness he had begun to express toward her had been noticeable and he knew it but did little to stop it. But she had come to the rescue, as always, by actively pursuing a friendship with him, such as phoning him on Christmas Day (he had not answered), to wish him a merry one, spending a very busy but very fun and challenging New Year's Eve with him in the emergency room, during which midnight came and went without anyone's notice. Then eight days later, she had surprised him with the gift of a very old, mid-World War II, medical textbook for his birthday. And she had been so discreet about it, did not say a word to the other nurses, nor to Dr. Oakes, nor even to him about his birthday during the shift. Instead, she had tastefully waited until they were walking to their cars afterward to present it to him and tell him happy birthday, positively beaming while he looked alarmed.

But the laughter. The jokes they had shared, the odd cases, the thrilling ones, the random, silly mischief he found her in…All of this combined had gotten him through that depressing period. No, they could never be any great love. But they were friends and growing closer every day. Jasmine had emerged from her broken engagement like a Phoenix, stronger than ever, and her happiness, her drive and energy were more valuable to him than he could likely ever express to her in words. She had inadvertently taught him (forced him) how to cherish and enjoy their friendship versus wallowing in what could never be. He had also decided somewhere along the way that he would much rather have her in his life, in whatever capacity, versus not at all.

Pulling himself back to the present, Severus nodded his understanding. "I'm glad it wasn't something more serious," he commented, recalling the loud bang of a noise he had heard in the background of their phone call a few nights ago when the washer had broken. "It sounded like an explosion on my end."

"Yeah!" she exclaimed in agreement, tucking a loose curl back into her immense ponytail. "That's what I thought it was! I almost had a heart atta-"

At that moment, a red, incoming emergency alert window popped up on the computers in front of them simultaneously.

 _Inbound: white male, 38y/o, multiple stab wounds, critical, class 4…_

This was all Severus needed to read. Jasmine had bounced to her feet in readiness and he followed suit, though with admittedly much less pep. She watched him rise from the chair with an arch to her left eyebrow, cocking her head to the side slightly and glancing him up and down. He rolled his eyes behind the shorter bits of his hair; she was about to ask-

"Your back still hurting?" She joined him as he moved past her to leave the nurses' station and asked this as though his back hurting was the only thing preventing him from springing up as she had done. Not the fact that he was over a decade her senior and a just shy of a full head taller. Also tired.

Severus shrugged, glancing out at the triage area as a nurse jogged past, Ambu-bag in hand. "No, not as badly as last week," he replied conversationally, though he did lean back slightly to stretch, now that she mentioned it. He reached out to take the sterile pack of size 9 gloves Jasmine was holding out for him as he righted himself. "Nothing a healthy shot of morphine couldn't fix anyway," he joked dryly.

Jasmine, who had long since gotten the hang of his own particular brand of humor, did not miss a beat and instead gave a relieved sigh. "Oh, good, you had some too," she breathed, patting him on the arm lightly.

At that moment, the doors to the triage unit swung open and a very pale, very bloody man was ushered into their midst, flanked on either side by paramedics. Dr. Prince strode forward with Jasmine a half step behind him, both applying sterile gloves.

"BP?" he demanded of the nearest paramedic, immediately placing the ear pieces of his stethoscope into his ears. When the paramedic hesitated, fumbling for the information, he let out a growl of frustration. "Useless," he grumbled, listening to the man's heart for only a moment before glancing across the bleeding patient to Jasmine. She had already applied a blood pressure cuff to the man and was taking the measurement manually, turquoise stethoscope in place, all digital technology forgotten. She knew he only accepted manual readings for vitals on critical patients and trusted machines very little. And he rarely needed to instruct her anymore. She may walk a half-step behind him at work, but she was continually ahead of him or right there with him mentally. She had even begun anticipating his exact orders and doing most drug calculations before he had ordered, or even mentioned, the medication or treatment.

The sensation of being overcrowded swept over him suddenly and Severus rose to his full height to point toward the back entrance through which the paramedics had just come. "EMS staff, do please excuse yourself from this emergency room, through the doors directly _behind you,_ " he announced loudly, glancing individually at each of the medics standing near him. And one by one, they filed out around him, leaving a few other nurses and Jasmine, who was smirking appreciatively, her eyes on the blood pressure cuff dial.

Several hours later, after the stabbed man had been sent to and survived surgery, after Severus had changed back into his normal jeans and shirt, he found himself traveling the hallway toward the garage to leave. But he was not alone. He was never alone for these walks anymore as Jasmine had been consistently waiting for him after every shift for over four months now. It was as routine as coming to work in the first place.

"I really don't understand this assignment," she was saying, groaning at the ceiling as she clutched the strap of her messenger-style bag across her middle. Her hair had come down from the ponytail and her tight curls bounced slightly as she shook her head. "She wants so much information, on stuff that isn't even in the notes or book."

Severus smirked. "This is one of the last assignments for the term, is it not?" he asked, following her through the door leading out to the garage.

"Yes!" she exclaimed in desperation. "Which is why I'm kind of freaking out!"

It took only a moment to reach his car, having parked so close to the door in a designated physician's parking space. He stopped, but turned to lean against the trunk, folding his arms across his chest, stethoscope and ID badges in hand. "You have fantastic marks," he replied simply, shoulders rising and dropping. "I'm sure you're simply overthinking it, as usual."

Across from him, Jasmine sighed, closing her eyes momentarily. "You're probably right," she admitted, opening her eyes again to glance down and pick idly at a stray fiber on her faded green, old t-shirt bearing the cartoon 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'. "I'm going to work on it tomorrow. I might call you if I get stuck though," she added, grinning at him sheepishly.

Severus returned the smile understandingly. "Only if-"

"Only if I _really_ can't find it anywhere else. Yeah, I know."

After a quick drive, Severus was home, stepping into his apartment and tossing his keys onto his cluttered glass table as he passed it in favor of his bedroom. Somewhere in his dresser was a long, soft pair of gray pajama pants that he was very much looking forward to putting on. After working in scrubs all day, which are essentially expensive pajamas, the only way to be any more comfortable was to either be naked or as close to it as possible. Though ever since Potter's Patronus had come soaring unexpectedly through his living room glass doors, he had not been lying naked on his couch nearly as often.

He shook his head with a grunt of laugh as he stepped out of his jeans. He had not seen hide nor hair of the boy since their duel, which he found deeply satisfying. Perhaps he had thrashed him so thoroughly that he had learned his lesson, gotten what he had wanted to gain from the experience and was finally keeping his distance. Live and let live, at last.

Then again…perhaps this was wishful thinking to the point of madness on Severus' behalf. Somehow, despite how badly he wished otherwise, he felt that their exchange on the 'battlefield' in California was not the last time he would be seeing Harry Potter. The child-turned-man seemed forever incapable of staying out of his business. Even if he _died_.

Severus stepped into his lab, hair finally set free from its knot, wand held loosely at his side. He took his usual deep, filling breath of the air within. He had nothing brewing currently, but the room still smelled of Earth and countless mingled scents, some sweet and pleasing, others not so much. It smelled like home.

He had been spending more time in there lately, owing likely to the fact that he was helping Jasmine with school so often, seeing the material again, fresh. It had spurred his curiosity, reactivated that itch to… _fiddle_ with things. Which made it all the more annoying that Jasmine could never know of his 'abilities', his magic. Often, he found himself wishing for advice or even just to explain some of his theories out loud, to gauge the other's reaction. Once, he had even subconsciously reached for his phone to call Jasmine, out of habit, about something he had considered; something medical but that blatantly involved magic. It was frustrating to the absolute limit, but it was the situation. There was nothing to be done about it.

Severus was fast learning how to leave things be.

He had also, _however,_ been using more magic at work. Little, simple incantations, minor things that could go unnoticed. He used _hemostasis_ quite a bit as he was extremely gifted with that particular spell nonverbally and wandless. Jasmine never seemed to notice it since it was as subtle as Severus sliding his finger along a bleeding surface while thinking the word and focusing on his intent. The blood would slowly stop flowing until it was nothing more than a gentle ooze, which would gradually slow to complete closure and clotting of the vessels. It was an incredibly useful spell and one that he felt he should not have to sacrifice using. But the use of magic at the hospital had not only been medical...He may or may not have purposely started messing with Oakes (and Jasmine) in deliberately magical ways. He frequently liked to turn all the pens' ink in Oakes' pockets blue. He had once prevented Jasmine's car from starting for ten minutes while she freaked out about 'But it's a _new_ car!', _very_ commonly caused Oakes' phone to malfunction while on the clock. No, he did not view it as _teasing Muggles_ per se, but…Well, perhaps a little. He should probably stop. He was just so bored. He desperately missed doing magic openly, without worrying about who saw or whose memory needed modifying. He wondered if perhaps another trip to his field in California should be arranged.

In midair, above his work bench, floated six round stones, hovering there, bobbing on the air gently as Severus approached them. His forehead furrowed as he sat down on his stool, rubbing the scratchy, after-work stubble along his jaw in contemplation, surveying the stones. They were perfectly spherical and identical in weight and yet…He reached out giving one of them a prod with his finger, pushing it away from him so that the stones began to spin in a circle. He had tested this homemade, enchanted centrifuge 'prototype' the night before, to what could have been a very painful result. The stones had flown apart unexpectedly at one of the higher speeds and ricocheted around his lab like missiles, shattering a good portion of his glassware and leaving great divots in the stone walls. It was a good job he doubted himself at times and had thought to cast a Shield in front of him, _just_ in case.

For several long moments, Severus sat there, attempting to think, willing himself to be scientific for just a bit longer. But his shoulders slumped into a slouch only a moment later. It was no use. After a shift like the one from which he had just come home, there was typically nothing left for it but to sleep or read or drink. Or any combination of those things. Though he had to admit, he was quite proud of himself for being more social lately. With a groan of temporary defeat and surrender, Severus rose once more from the stool and left the lab, figuring he could fiddle with it the following day if he had time before work.

Yes, Severus had allowed himself to be coerced into a social life by Jasmine, who had approached him after work one night with the idea to go to the Van Gogh installment at the Museum of Fine Arts. At first, he had hesitated, still very fresh from his decision not to pursue anything further than friendship with her, so soon after he had fallen a bit depressed at the idea that he could very likely be alone for the rest of his life. But he had forced himself to go, join her at the museum on a random Wednesday afternoon. And he had a surprisingly nice time.

They walked through the exhibit and talked quietly, though Severus had let Jasmine do most of that portion of it. Afterward, they had gotten coffee and sat outside on a sunny March day, people-watching and making up silly backstories for the various passers-by, Jasmine sharing stories from her life in California. It did not exactly hurt (nor help) that she had looked so pretty that day, her wild, blonde curls neat and slightly more organized, skin and eyes clear and bright. He honestly could not remember enjoying someone's company as much as he had enjoyed hers that day. At least…not in a very long time.

From that point, Severus did not often decline offers to do things with Jasmine when she asked, though he had not yet worked up the courage to invite her to do something with him in return. Yes, he offered to meet her to study, but he never invited her out to do something interesting, unrelated to her schoolwork, or suggested in any way, outwardly, that he would like to spend time with her. Inviting her to his apartment was out of the question and he had dodged it every time thus far. Not only was his apartment not exactly 'Muggle-proof', but it was truthfully rather boring and dull in comparison to hers by far. Perhaps some sort of local event would come up soon that he could invite her to in a completely casual, off-handed sort of way.

The night of the Christmas party, before he had left, Jasmine had walked him to his car, as usual, and hugged him, thanking him for coming with every ounce of genuineness she contained. And he had hugged her in return, perhaps a bit drunkenly enjoying the way her dress clung to her frame, but also truly glad in some ways that he had gone. He was glad that he had endured that two-hour stint of social time where all he felt was simple, pure attraction to her, before the maddeningly rational, much more powerful part of his brain kicked in. It had been a 'downhill from there' sort of situation when he had left that night, but it did not last long. Jasmine did not allow it.

After pulling a book from the immense shelves at random, he lit a fire in the grate simply for the atmosphere and light of it, and dropped heavily, at long last, onto his couch. A bottle of scotch was gliding toward him on the air from the kitchen, a crystal tumbler joining it, both coming to settle gently on the coffee table next to him. If all went according to plan, he would get several chapters into whatever he had selected to read, have a nice glass of scotch, then fall asleep right there and stay that way until late morning.

His eyes had only just fallen onto the first sentence when the distinct, familiar 'bzz-bzz…bzz-bzz' of his phone, vibrating atop a stack of papers on his glass table, reached his ears. Instead of a low growl of annoyance, however, he smirked, Summoning his phone nonverbally. There was only one person who would dare text him after he had gone home from a shift and was not on-call.

The phone glided over to hover above him and he took it, setting the book down to lay open across his chest. He scowled at the screen.

'1 text message from Jasmine- 2:58am'

He opened the message, his expression relaxing into a smirk.

" _You awake?"_

He typed " _Yes,"_ and sent it.

This was the most he ever texted her. He absolutely loathed texting, avoided it at all costs, and Jasmine had picked up on this quickly. She texted him only when necessary or for something silly that he did not need to reply to, or to check if he was awake so that she would not wake him by making a full phone call. He felt this was very thoughtful of her as several times, he had woken up to a ' _You awake?'_ text that was sent eight or nine hours earlier.

Predictably, after his message had been sent and received, his phone began to ring within his hand, telling him that Jasmine was now seeking a full, verbal conversation.

Had it been anyone else, literally anyone else on Earth, he would have frisbee-tossed his phone into the blazing fireplace across the room. But he answered.

"Yes?" he asked by way of a greeting.

"Hey!" she replied brightly into his ear, "Sorry, I just had a question on this stupid thing for pharmacology. You're not busy, are you?"

At this, a slight frown broke through Severus' content expression. "I thought you weren't working on that until tomorrow," he reminded her, in something of a reprimanding tone of voice though he admired her drive once again.

She sighed into the phone. He could just picture her sitting cross-legged in the middle of her living room floor, books and notes spread far and wide, laptop open and on. "Yeah, but I got home, and it was just really bugging me so I figured I might as well work on it a little," she explained this all rather quickly and Severus rolled his eyes, finally picking up the abandoned book, to send it zooming back to its place on the bookshelf.

"And you've had coffee-"

"Also, I stopped and got coffee, yeah."

With a grunt of a laugh, Severus turned his phone's speaker on and set it on his bare chest, crossing his legs at the ankle comfortably. He took a warming sip of scotch, his eyes sliding closed.

"Right then, what's the question?"

…

Jasmine woke with a heavy sigh, in a heap atop her pastel orange comforter, shivering slightly as the fan above the bed whirred at top speed. She had fallen asleep sometime around five in the morning and could remember feeling hot and flushed from the caffeine she had stupidly drunk after work. Thus, the fan.

This also explained why she had woken up wearing absolutely zero clothes whatsoever.

Why she had not made it under the covers nor even into a comfortable sleeping position was beyond her. With her eyes squeezed shut, she reached over blindly for the edge of the comforter, which she pulled up and over herself as a shield against the draft. Her goosebumps dissipated.

From the brief glimpse of sunlight she had seen when she first stirred, she could tell that it was still relatively early in the day, maybe noon or so. She was not due at work until six o'clock that night as it was one of her late shifts, which meant she was free to lie there for several more hours if she wanted. With a hum of content, she curled up further under the folded comforter, mind wandering to what Severus was doing, if he was still sleeping.

Probably.

A soft grin lifted her cheeks as she tugged the comforter closer across her shoulders. That man could sleep for twelve hours straight if no one disturbed him or if he had no other obligations. Of course, she had never exactly witnessed his sleeping schedule firsthand but whenever answering a phone call or returning a missed one, his reason was usually that he had been sleeping. Once, she had texted him to ask if he was awake at one in the morning, only to receive a return text of ' _Yep',_ at noon.

She could also fondly remember the time she had caught him sleeping at work, during the third quarter of a long, fourteen-hour shift he had picked up for Dr. McCann. She had watched him enter the doctor's lounge at around three o'clock (she had sent him there to cool off after arguing with a patient) but could remember getting more and more suspicious the longer he stayed in there. Finally, after about a half hour, she had very carefully and slowly pushed open the door to the lounge, to find that he had fallen asleep, out cold, on one of the two cushy, leather couches.

She had hastily stepped into the room and shut the door silently behind her, heart pounding as though she was watching a lion sleep from inside its enclosure. From the way his long form had been draped along the couch, it seemed as though he had intentionally settled that way. Jasmine stood there for several long moments, taking in this rare glimpse of her usually stoic friend in a vulnerable state, one in which he was not scowling, but instead looked somewhat at peace, calm. With one foot on the floor, the other leg taking up the remaining length of the couch and both arms folded naturally across his middle, he looked almost too comfortable to wake up. She thought perhaps she could convince Oakes to take over as attending for the remainder of the night.

Her stomach had done a weird flop as she looked down at the oblique side-profile of his face, the angle of his jaw exposing those ever-mysterious scars on his neck. Jasmine still had not asked him about them, nor the weird, scarred remainder of what she assumed was a tattoo on his left inner forearm. She was not sure whether she would ever feel comfortable enough to ask him about them outright. Their friendship was great where it was. There was no need to go poking at what are likely sensitive subjects, only to have him retreat and potentially put a damper on not only their friendship, but their working relationship as well. She could not allow him to get back to how he had treated her when she first started. As far as she was concerned, he could tell her about those scars in his own time; however much time he needed.

It was the rarest of occasions to begin with, the fact that she had caught him sleeping. However, this was made even more momentous when she noticed that he had gone so far in his quest for a few minutes' rest that he had removed the hair tie from his usual, sloppy low bun. His long black hair was left loose to lay beneath his head, falling over his shoulders and the arm of the couch as he had slid down it gradually. This was where Jasmine had needed to suppress a gasp. She _loved_ his hair and told him so frequently. But at that time, she had not yet touched it and really wanted to know what it felt like, soft or course, heavy or light. Kneeling at the side of the couch, she had reached out and taken one tendril of jet-black hair into her fingers, grinning stupidly to herself as she imagined his facial expression were he to wake up at that moment, to find her awkwardly touching his hair while he slept.

His hair was soft, as she had figured it would be, but thick and with only the slightest wave to it. It was difficult to tell from the way he was laying at the time, but Jasmine felt it would have easily reached to between his shoulder blades if he had been upright. At that point, she had dropped the hair hastily, to clear her throat and rest her hand very lightly on his shoulder.

"Severus," She had used his first name at work only that one time, only to give him the immediate indication that it was she who was waking him versus some other poor, unsuspecting nurse.

Part of her had fully expected him to jerk awake, give a start of surprise. She had even braced for it, quickly rehearsed what she was going to say if he had some problem with her waking him up. He did not, however, and instead merely took a deep breath in through his nose, his chest rising and falling as he readjusted his head to a more comfortable position. His eyes did not open.

"Five more minutes," He spoke in a gravelly, low growl. "'n I'll be good as new…" The voice trailed slightly, his expression softening again as he slipped back toward sleep.

She grinned, attempting to hide it by biting down on her bottom lip. He was honestly a little bit cute sometimes and quite unintentionally so.

"You've already had like…forty," she replied quietly.

His head finally jerked up, his eyes opening abruptly to then blink hard at the bright fluorescent lights overhead. "Has it really?" he asked in a disproportionate response to her statement, eyebrows arching sharply in both surprise and residual grogginess as he glanced at his watch. A deep groan left his chest as he dropped back down onto the couch. One arm had risen from his side in a lazy sort of random gesture.

"Carry us, won't you?" he asked hopefully, eyes closed once again but a hopeful smirk on his face.

"Uh, not a chance. You can walk," Jasmine had stood up quickly. He was being so…normal and too _stinking cute;_ she had to get him back into a shitty mood before she up and kissed him on his stupid face. She could remember watching him rise from the couch, long hair falling over his shoulders, around his angular features. It somehow softened the look in his eyes to have his hair down around his face and certainly made him look younger. But almost as though he had known what she was thinking at that moment, he had snatched it back up into a low bun, where it remained firmly in place for the remainder of the shift.

Presently, under the folded comforter, Jasmine's grin widened. She liked to reminisce on that memory in particular; she so rarely got glimpses into his truly private life. Yes, they had become rather good friends since they had started working together but she still did not know that much about _him_. More perhaps than anyone else at the hospital, but so much about him remained a mystery to her. She found it both exciting and deeply frustrating at the same time.

After tediously getting Linda home from the Christmas party, Jasmine had stayed up for quite a while that night, lounged across her bed, headphones on, music playing softly. She had lay there and revisited the entire night in memories, highlighting her favorite parts, such as when Severus had called her 'lovely', talking together normally, like regular people, joking and laughing with each other. He had looked so undeniably handsome that night, his gaze softer than she had ever seen it, even his voice relaxed somewhat from his usual drawling, bored or otherwise crisp, curt tone. She had seen snatches of a similar calmness a few times since then, but it was this night, lying alone in the dark after the party, that she had realized, without much hesitancy, that she had a massive, schoolgirl-style crush on Dr. Prince. It was something she had been trying to deny for a while, owing to the fact that she had very recently been engaged to someone she had dated for four years. She felt… _wrong_ for developing feelings for someone else so quickly after that.

But Jasmine reminded herself that the instant the bottle made contact with her skull, her love for Jeremy had died. As abruptly as she had hit the pavement that night outside their friend's house, so had whatever affection and love she thought she felt for him. She had not missed him for one single moment, not one heartbeat since she had left California and even less so after his unexpected visit to Boston to find her. But Severus had stepped in, sent him on his way, and true to his claim, she had not heard nor seen anything of Jeremy since that night.

Jasmine flipped onto her other side, stretching her back like a cat as she did so.

And yet, it had nagged at her since the Christmas party that there was no way he could ever return her silly feelings of attraction. She was too peppy, too energetic, too _obnoxious_ for him. He was introverted to the extreme, quiet and brooding. He was a dark presence to her light, but one which brought her comfort, security. In some odd way, she felt _safe_ around him, as though he was constantly looking out for her, even when she was too distracted or stubborn to do it herself. Yes, initially, he had been intimidating to the point where she was unsure whether she could work with him long-term. But slowly, very carefully, she had started tugging on bits of his personality, pulling it out and showing him how to relax, enjoy things and be at ease. Regardless, Jasmine felt deeply that Severus would go for someone opposite of her; a cool, calm, collected woman who likes to drink tea, watch CNN, and play golf and keeps her opinions to herself unless asked. Jasmine was just too… _not_ that.

Despite his callous attitude in the beginning, they now laughed together about the dumbest things, stayed on the phone far longer than necessary and saw each other fairly often outside of work. He seemed to enjoy his time with her, which was not readily evident to the lay person, the ones outside looking in on their newly established friendship, but Jasmine knew. She saw the way he acted toward those who he did not like.

Rebecca was a perfect example. Severus could not stand her. She was Jasmine's only other 'close' friend in Boston, so she had been playing a sort of balancing act between her and Severus, even attempted to talk to both of them simultaneously a few times at work. None of her attempts had gone well. Severus had feigned deafness, later claiming that he had been unaware she was speaking to him at the time. And Rebecca had nodded each time, eyebrows raised in forced interest as she attempted to walk away slowly, even motioning for Jasmine to come with her, away from Dr. Prince. Rebecca had been the last nurse to work more closely with him than the others. She disliked him for the same reasons Jasmine supposed she should have. He had been an absolute nightmare to work with before she had started, according to, well, everyone. Therefore, Rebecca did not believe for one minute that he was actually a good friend and enjoyable to be around, no matter what Jasmine said.

But his personality was not a flaw in her eyes. His brash, rude attitude during those first few months had not been completely off-putting to her. It had been extremely hard at first, yes, but it presented something of a challenge to her; something to work on every day. Had he not shown her brief glimpses of genuine smiles and laughter, the capability to be happy, offered her protection and comfort when her past had come to haunt, she would not have bothered fostering a relationship with him, friendly or otherwise. But she absolutely knew there was more to him. She had observed so much about him in just the quick four months since Christmas. By paying attention when he was not, she was getting to know his personality pretty well, only by watching, and Jasmine was almost entirely certain he did not even realize it was happening.

Severus had this habit of getting lost in thought, eyebrows arched, brow furrowed as he glared off into space. This typically happened when there was momentary lull in the action at work, or when sitting quietly at a coffee shop while she jotted down notes from her textbook. Several times she had looked up to find him with that long, lost expression in his eyes, a hollow sort of look, elbows on the table, hands together in some fashion, fingers interlocked or prayer-style. His posture was relaxed but that _face._ Privately, Jasmine had begun referring to it as his 'tortured genius' look. But despite the distance in his gaze, he was apparently always paying attention in some capacity as he could reply to her questions or statements without asking her to repeat them. She had purposely tried to catch him off-guard on a few occasions.

He was also a complete germaphobe with a _great_ dislike for those who sneezed or coughed without shielding their face in some sort of way. Cases of sick children with bad colds and pneumonia were nightmares as inevitably, there would be at least one or two coughs or sneezes directly into or near his face. He had reduced more than one child under the age of eight to tears, leaving Jasmine to soothe the child and distract the parents from making a complaint. At times, she had no idea how he could have taught teenagers for as long as he had. As bad as he was with the kids, however, with their blatant attempts to kill him by sneezing on him, he was worse by far with the adults.

Jasmine let out an audible, muffled laugh beneath her warm comforter as she reflected on a particular instance where a forty-year old man with a deep gash on his arm, something completely unrelated to mucosal secretions, had sneezed right next to Dr. Prince. He had been standing at the bedside at the time just next to the patient, placing a row of sutures. The man had not moved to cover his mouth or nose in any way at all.

Severus had stopped abruptly, needle halfway through the skin to stare at the side of the man's face, _aghast_. He had glanced across the room at her and blinked in a very 'did you see _that_ shit?' sort of way.

"If I may…" he had begun, his voice drawling and snide. Jasmine could remember thinking 'oh no,'. "-how have you made it to this age and _not_ learned how to cover your mouth _when you sneeze?"_ His tone had been so offended and disgusted, Jasmine almost had to leave the room for laughing.

But the man had gotten defensive. "I didn't want to move my arm!" he snapped hotly in return.

"WOW. You're right," Dr. Prince had countered immediately, a bit loudly, voice dripping with sarcasm. "If only you had another one you could use."

He earned himself a patient complaint over that one, but it was truthfully too funny to her at the time to reprimand him for it.

Severus also had the best, most charming habit of all; he opened doors for her. Not all of them, but the ones which he could easily reach before her. And he was very subtle about it, as though it was nothing to him, merely a common courtesy, habit. Although Jasmine had at first been thrown by this, she felt if it was indeed a habit, it was a really nice one. She certainly never expected it of him, ever, but if he wanted to or simply did it out of habit, unconsciously, who was she to stop him?

All in all, at the core of it, Jasmine had been _happy_ lately and that was the only thing that mattered. She was enjoying her new life there, enjoying her new, interesting friends, living on her own again and back in school. Currently, the sun was still shining, and she had plenty of time to finish her pharmacology assignment before her shift that night. With a big, deep breath to enjoy just one last moment of relaxation, she flung the comforter off of herself and rolled to the edge of the bed, sort of forgetting that she was stark naked. Whoops.

Time to get going.

That evening, Jasmine was just getting out of her car, slinging her bag over her shoulder, when she spotted Severus approaching, a content, subtle smirk on his face, most of it contained in his eyes. He carried his stethoscope and ID badge in one hand while his other came to rest on the trunk of her car when he stopped there. Her stomach did the thing it always did when she saw him unexpectedly or with little warning. Warmth rose in her cheeks as she quickly leaned back into her car, for only a moment, to grab the water bottle from the center console. She managed a muffled "Hey!" from inside the car while she was at it.

"I'm assuming you finished it then?" he asked once she had hastily reappeared, a bit pink in the face. Hopefully he would assume this was from the motion of leaning over.

"Yep!" she replied, beaming with pride as she briefly reflected on the masterpiece of a homework assignment she had written. "Turned it in a few hours ago." With a push of her key fob, she locked her car and joined him as he continued walking toward the garage entrance to the hospital.

"Good," Severus encouraged, smirking while Jasmine felt herself beaming at him stupidly. "I'm sure it was at least…satisfactory." He added this last bit with a glance down his shoulder to her at his side, that subtle smirk gaining strength enough to show a few teeth as he watched the excited expression slide from her face.

She rolled her eyes back at him though it was difficult not to grin. "Well, _you_ helped me with a good portion of it so-" she began, but he interrupted, holding his ID badge to the sensor on the door.

"Oh, so it was probably excellent," he corrected, pulling open the door ahead of her and holding it.

She gave a loud, fake, exaggerated laugh and stepped into the hospital before him, but was unable to help herself from falling into genuine giggles. "Asshole," she mumbled, stumbling a playful half-step when he nudged her arm with his own.

…

The first portion of the shift had gone very quickly, in a blur of bloody gauze and gloves, critical and non-critical patients, he and Oakes working circles around each other but Jasmine working circles around them _both._ She was on fire that night and he was not entirely certain why, but he liked it. It made the time go faster when he had just handed her a completed chart for discharge, only for her to turn around and hand him a new one on which to get started.

Things continued in this way for a majority of the shift, until eventually it slowed to a trickle, then to a stop, most unfortunately, with several hours still left to go. Random patients were still there, in the emergency room, admitted by either himself or Dr. Oakes, but there were not any inbound emergencies, nothing critical. He had heard a nurse talking about a woman who had just come into the emergency waiting room, but it had only been in passing and he did not care enough to attempt to hear the details. If she was bad enough, he would see her regardless.

At around two in the morning, Severus was seated at the usual nurses' station in his usual chair, leaned back comfortably, sipping a cup of cheap, black coffee while he read from a journal at random by the American Academy for Neurology. He had finished whatever paperwork he had needed to, including his notes on the madness from earlier and had just turned the page to continue the article when Jasmine approached the desk with a chart, heaving a deep sigh.

" _Yes?"_ he asked slowly, without lifting his eyes from the journal.

"I have a woman, thirty-two year old, white-". Jasmine began reciting the information while Severus took another sip of coffee, still reading. She paused, tossing one hand in the air to gesture at him. "Can you at least pretend to pay attention to me?"

"Thirty-two-year old, white female…" he repeated in a leading tone of voice, finally setting down the journal to look up at her. His motioned with his hand to prompt her to continue. " _And…_ "

Jasmine took a deep breath, staring back into his eyes, only to exhale and reply, "…She's in labor-"

At this, Severus groaned, rolling his eyes as he let his head drop onto the back of his chair. "Really?" he asked, with a clear note of disappointment in his voice. "All of that for…" he mumbled under his breath, picking up the journal again to resume reading. "Wrong department. Send her up to obstetrics."

Jasmine frowned at him, dropping the chart onto the counter between them. "She had three decent-sized contractions in the ten-ish minutes that I was in there with her, Doc, and she says she's only been in labor for an hour," she explained. Severus set the journal down again, his expression flat, annoyed. Pregnant women were the worst. Jasmine was struggling not to grin like an idiot. "I think you should probably go have a look, just in case-"

"Fine," he stated abruptly, rising from his chair to take up his stethoscope and fold it into his back pocket. "If I go see her, _then_ can I send her to the delivery floor?" His dark eyes glinted with sarcasm as he rounded the corner of the desk to join her, and Jasmine glared at him in return, though the very corners of her mouth twitched upward.

"Yes, _then_ you can send her to the-"

"Dr. Prince?"

A random nurse had come skidding around the corner, a look of urgency on her face.

Jasmine turned so quickly to see who had addressed him that her full ponytail swung out and brushed across the chest of his scrubs. Severus glanced down at the back of her head fondly. She was like a guard chihuahua.

"Yes?" he responded.

"Um, your patient is-"

At these words alone, Jasmine took off at a run, like a jack rabbit, immediately sprang into action and was to their patient's room in an instant. Severus followed at a much calmer speed, not wanting to draw attention to himself nor his patient if she was having a true crisis. He rounded the corner just in time to see Jasmine enter one of the curtained 'exam rooms', through which he could now clearly hear a woman crying.

"I can't do it, I can't _do it-_ ", the female voice sobbed. "My husband died four months ago, I can't-"

At this, Severus stopped walking altogether, exhaling a breath through his nose as he bowed his head, eyes sliding shut. That explained exactly what he had been about to berate this woman for; going into labor and waiting until the last minute to come to the hospital. There was no way she had only been in labor for an hour. But he understood immediately, no reason to ask for an explanation. She was terrified, heartbroken, and alone for the birth of her child.

So, no pressure.

Severus stepped into the curtained space without hesitation but paused in the way, taking in the sight of the very pregnant, visibly upset young woman on the bed, and Jasmine, who sat just beside her, both arms around her shoulders, physically holding this stranger. Clearing his throat quietly, he stepped further into the space as they separated, though Jasmine stayed at the bedside, clutching the woman's hand.

"Mrs. Nellinger," he addressed her thusly with intent, wishing he could somehow convey to her how very sorry he was for her loss. "It is my understanding that you are quite pregnant, are you not?" he asked, allowing himself the tiniest of smirks as the young woman gave a shaky, watery laugh, and nodded her head. Jasmine positively beamed at him; she loved it when he was nice(r) to the patients. "Indeed," he replied smartly. "We'll work on that in a moment," He took a deep breath, black eyes flickering to Jasmine, whose expression had just dropped in favor of one more exasperated, before continuing. "I must ask you to be honest with me before we proceed, as a lie could very well cost you and your child your lives," He ended this statement with another ringing silence, one that he hoped pressed upon his patient's ear drums heavily. The expectant mother was allowed one moment to return from mild relief to confusion and fear before Severus went on. "I need to know when you really went into labor. What time-"

At that moment, the young woman around whom Jasmine had wrapped her arm let out a howl and fell back onto the elevated head of the bed behind her, hands gripping the side of her belly. Severus could not help but roll his eyes before he approached the bed, thankful once again that Jasmine had more patience than he, as she allowed the woman to clutch her hand to the point that her fingertips turned white in her grip. He would see the infant through the birth process if he had to, but afterward it would be off to one of the neonatal care units in the floors above, and that would be the extent of his interaction with this woman, _or_ her baby. Jasmine could do all the follow-up work she liked; in his own mind, once the patient had made it through the doors (front _or_ back), they were no longer his responsibility. Every now and again, curiosity would get the better of him and he would look up the results of a case, but this was not one of those times, he thought, watching the clock on the wall with his fingers rested against the side of the woman's neck at her carotid artery, palpating her pulse.

The pulse was steady and normal, albeit high of course, but he felt no obvious abnormalities. Her contraction was indeed strong, as Jasmine had relayed, and lasted long enough that Severus' stony features began to change slowly. One eyebrow arched, his eyes narrowed, the curve of his lips tightening. He pressed the back of his hand to her forehead; no fever, only a cold sweat. And yet the contraction was lasting, the woman was sobbing, clutching Jasmine's hand as though her life depended on it, her other hand occupied by grabbing onto the railing of the bed, very close to where he currently stood…where her husband should have been.

Finally, the contraction subsided to a point where the woman could speak, and with a thick, trembling voice, she answered, "I swear," She paused to take a deep breath, swallowing back what was very likely vomit. He could not thank her enough. "This really did only start like an hour ago! I was just sitting there, then felt a sharp pain and my water broke and-" She cut off, glancing up at Jasmine with the same panic in her face that she had just showed him.

But she did not need to continue. When she had begun talking, she had looked straight up at Dr. Prince, and he had been waiting, ready. He locked eyes with her, not even bothering to listen to her verbal words, but searching instead for the answer within her gaze. He had hastily thought ' _Legilimens'_ and felt his mind hurtling into the two hazel tunnels that were his patient's eyes. And within, he had seen all that he needed, even _more_ than he had needed, a detail that his patient had spared, possibly out of ignorance, possibly out of fear. It had been a memory, and while the woman called Susan apparently had not noticed that the spot she had left behind on the bed was bloody, Severus had, simply by watching her memory of the event through her own eyes. He emerged from it quickly, clearing his throat and glancing at Jasmine pointedly, to indicate that she should join him outside the room right away. She stood up automatically, gently prying Susan's fingers away from her own.

"Mrs. Nellinger, I'll need to go consult with Miss. Taylor momentarily," he said calmly, his tone even, indicating absolutely nothing to the patient that something had gone wrong. "Do not leave this room. I will return very shortly."

"What do you mean-" the young woman started, rising up onto her elbows, attempting to see around her belly. "I promise! I really did go into lab-"

Severus frowned, waving a hand at her impatiently. "Yes, yes, I know, shut up, I'll be right back," he said absentmindedly, following Jasmine out into the hall, who turned and glared at him reproachfully.

"Did you just tell her to shut up?" she asked, pointing at the door he had just slid shut behind himself. Severus rolled his eyes, shaking his head as though a fly had been buzzing near him.

"Yes, I did. She can complain later," he replied, flipping open the chart to begin writing orders on it. "I believe she's had a placental separation. We need a fetal monitor on her to determine if-"

Jasmine let out a squeal of horror that she stifled quickly with both of her hands, cheeks glowing pink as Severus looked up slowly from the chart, gaze narrowed, watching her closely for a moment. "You going to be alright?" he asked a moment later, opting to end his sentence early versus continuing on to say '-if her baby doesn't make it?' He knew that Jasmine was getting rather good at picking up the subtext he often left unspoken in favor of her feelings.

Without hesitation, she nodded curtly, even going so far as to stand a bit straighter, setting her face to appear unphased. "Of course, I-…we-…I got this."

Liar.

Severus had seen it in her eyes just as clearly as he had seen it in their patient's; she would be so crushed if this woman's baby had already perished or did so during delivery. But he did not acknowledge this, knowing how much she disliked it when she got emotional at work, and how hard she tried not to get attached or bonded to their patients. Severus did not have this particular difficulty himself, but he did sympathize with it.

"What makes you think that though?" she asked, shaking her head, bouncing on the balls of her feet slightly. It was very clear to him that she wanted nothing more in the world than to sprint to the supply closets for the neonatal heartrate monitor and was only staying still for however long it took him to explain and he'd better do it quickly.

"Her amniotic fluid was bloody," he explained distractedly while he wrote even more sloppily than usual in his haste. "There were clots in it. I don't think she noticed."

It grew quiet enough that Severus took note of it, only a moment before Jasmine asked, "Noticed _what?"_

His concentration on the chart and his written word slid out of focus, his stomach plummeting several inches with a sickening swooping sensation.

Whoops.

"Er-, not _noticed,_ but…I mean there's a great spot of it on the sheets and her inner legs are stained," he explained hastily. "It may be an assumption, but I'd rather prepare for the worst and hope for the best or whatever that stupid saying is..."

Shit, he was blabbering and Jasmine was staring.

He continued writing, raising his eyebrows impatiently. "Aren't you supposed to be getting a fetal mon-"

Jasmine took off without another word, without any other hesitation though her expression remained confused, perhaps even a bit suspicious, unless he was being paranoid. Thankfully, it did not alter her speed as she zipped away from him and Severus exhaled a breath he did not realize he had been holding in her absence. That had been too close. WAY too close. He had just _said it_ as though JASMINE of all people on God's green Earth would ever miss a discrepancy that monstrous. He hated himself for feeling his hand shake, but there was no time to dwell. Jasmine was already on her way back with a belly monitor in hand and a very small neonatal stethoscope draped over her arm.

When he glanced at it questioningly, she merely shrugged and held it out to him. "Hope for the best, right?"

Some of the tension that had recently built itself up in his chest loosened like a knot had been untied. She was not acting strangely, she was still smiling in that peaceful, calming way she always did, her eyes expressive and clear but resolute. She wanted to save this baby. He took the stethoscope from her and folded it into his back pocket.

Smirking, he held out the chart to Jasmine and nodded his head toward the exam room. "Get her hooked up while I scrub. But call the result as negative or positive. Don't say anything if-" Again, he cut himself short.

Jasmine took the chart from him, her smile becoming something angelic as she stared up at him with understanding. "I know," she said simply. "I know." She added the second affirmation with a stiff nod and a purposeful frown of determination.

She left him in the direction of the room and Severus turned immediately to find the nearest scrubbing station, to do as they had said: hope for the best.

He had just completed the third pass on his left arm when the low thundering of tennis shoes on linoleum floor reached his ears and Jasmine appeared, pink and breathless at his side. "She's alive. Heartbeat is strong at one-eighty-six," she told him, her face alight with joy. "It's high but the pattern is normal-"

"Brilliant," he breathed, despite his efforts to remain as impassive as possible. He was honestly too relieved to hear it. "Have someone call the NICU and prepare them for the case. Make Oakes do it. I don't want anyone-"

"Got it!" Jasmine interrupted him with a warning glare, preventing him from going on about her fellow nurses and their inability to do even the simplest tasks correctly.

While Jasmine passed the chart off to Dr. Oakes with the instructions to prepare a place in the neonatal intensive care unit for their younger patient and a bed in the general hospital for their elder, Severus returned to the room, where Susan seemed to be in less discomfort than before with the aid of what few drugs he could give her for the pain and contractions. It was too late and far too risky to give her an epidural, but he had done what he could for the time being. She lifted her head when he re-entered the room, the sound of her baby's heart beating quietly from the monitor as he listened to the rhythm.

"Is she gonna be alright?" she asked, her voice calmer but still shaking with emotions and fear. "I really couldn't have gotten here any faster, I'm so-"

"You've done nothing wrong, Mrs. Nellinger, and I certainly hope she'll be alright," he replied, matching her tone with as much reassurance as he could. "The heart rate is high which indicates distress, which means…" He paused, pulling his eyes away from the monitor to glance at her, unsure how to word himself in a way that she would understand and not take the wrong way. "It means she's ready to come out," His gaze turned back to the monitor. "She's letting us know." He heard Susan give a sigh of relief as he applied a pair of sterile gloves and gown that Jasmine had set out for him.

Within another ten minutes, Jasmine had returned and was at their patient's side, clutching her hand while Susan screamed absolute bloody murder. How desperately Severus wished he could have cast _Muffliato_ over the room as he was positive that every single person in the emergency room could hear her, regardless of distance and barriers. It was not every day that he delivered a baby, though he certainly knew how, and he felt he had somewhat forgotten that it can be an excruciatingly painful process. She had been given _some_ medication but not nearly enough. But she was doing well thus far; the baby had made it to the birth canal in normal position and was beginning to crown. However, it was at this moment, while Severus had been seconds from commenting on the baby's hair, that it happened.

A healthy, somewhat round and smushed pink head had appeared, stopped, then began to grow pale and blue. Susan was in between pushes, catching her breath while Jasmine encouraged her and wiped her face with a damp towel. Severus once again felt his stomach fall to the floor, clenching with panic, though he did not allow any of this into his tone of voice when he spoke.

"Susan, I need you to push, now," he stated calmly, watching closely and listening as the fetal monitor began to beep more rapidly. Jasmine looked up from her ministrations of the young mother, meeting his eyes for only a second before she set the towel down and grasped Susan's hand.

"Did you hear Dr. Prince?" she asked, squeezing with both of her own hands. "We have to push now. Are you ready? Last one!"

With another deep breath, another great shout, she pushed hard, with all of her might, everything she had left in her, and with one gentle manipulation of the shoulders with his forefinger, a slimy, horrifyingly limp newborn practically fell into his hands. She was blue to her lips and growing cold in his hands. She had stopped breathing altogether, likely already hypoxic as it was.

Though panic, outright, flat-out panic was coursing through him, Severus absolutely did not allow it to betray itself as he turned away from the mother, shielding the blue baby from view. Her cord was still attached and could stay that way as far as he was concerned, until he heard her cry at least. But she was silent and still in his hands. His heart was banging against the inside of his ribcage like a wild, caged animal in a terrified frenzy. This baby could not die.

He would not allow it.

Flipping the baby over onto her stomach, he laid her across his sterile forearm and began pounding her back, using his gloved hands to clear amniotic fluid from her mouth and airways. Still not crying. His mind was beginning to go fuzzy as dread began to well up inside him.

"Miss. Taylor," he spoke, chancing a quick glance over his shoulder. "Please clamp and cut the umbilical cord so I can take her next door." It was with every hope she would understand something was wrong that he said this. Yes, she had gotten very good at picking up subtext but this was an actual, life-threatening critical emergency. He had not yet experienced the death of a child under the age of eight in his own hands and could not let this be his first. Not when her mother had already lost so much.

Fortunately, Jasmine seemed to catch on quickly and had clamped and cut the cord in an instant. Severus had hoped the cutting of the cord would provoke a breath, but the baby remained as lifeless and blue as ever. He pinched her, _praying_ that this would stimulate a breath.

Nothing.

No, it could not happen.

"Stay here," he instructed quietly to Jasmine as she approached.

Rising from the stool on which he had been sitting, Severus left the room entirely for the one directly next to it, where he laid the suffocating baby on the bed and conjured a bulb syringe from thin air, having forgotten the one in the room behind him, all thoughts of hiding his magic abandoned. His mind was spinning in a free-fall. Everything else around him became only noise, distractions, and his heart fluttered in his chest with how quickly it was beating.

"Oh, come _on,"_ groaned, scooping the baby up again quickly to lay her face-down in his lap, thumping her back again as he sat down on the bed, more vigorously than before, feeling absolutely savage for how large he was compared to such a tiny thing. " _Breathe, please!"_ he whispered to the lifeless infant in desperation.

Her heart was still beating but only just.

He couldn't lose her. He could not take the grief that would overwhelm him. He could not bear it to walk back into the simple exam room and tell a thirty-two year-old widow that the last piece of her late husband had perished in his hands due to circumstances out of his control. It would break him and most likely kill the mother. It could not happen that way.

Flipping the baby back over in his arms, he placed his full hand upon her chest, closed his eyes, focused, and said aloud, " _Anapneo"._

It worked instantly. He felt the spell leave him through the palm of his hand, into the infant's chest and only a second later, he felt her tiny ribs give a great heave, followed by the best noise he had ever heard in his life. She gave a fantastic, full sob, her tiny mouth in the shape of a perfect 'O' and Severus sighed, unable to stop himself from grinning as he wiped placental goo out of the newborn girl's eyes.

"Welcome back, darling girl," he cooed quietly, feeling that despite how he felt about his older patients, he shall never forget this child for the rest of his days. She was screaming and kicking blindly in the crook of his arm, and it was only when Severus moved to stand up that he noticed someone else was in the room. He stopped moving abruptly and turned to face her, any joy, any happiness at all at the return of his tiniest, most precious patient was dashed instantly, gone.

Jasmine had entered the room at some point, unnoticed by him, bearing a clean towel and blanket. And she was now staring at him, _horrified._

He foolishly attempted to play it off.

"She made it," he stated unnecessarily, stupidly, pointing at the wailing baby in his arm.

Jasmine merely shook her head, her eyes transfixed on him for several moments before she rushed forward, scooping the baby out of his arm away from him. While she wrapped the newborn snugly in first the soft towel then the blanket, she glanced at him, disgust in her eyes. Severus felt something ugly rear up in him, something like massive, overwhelming shame and guilt; something he had not felt in a long time but that was familiar to him in the worst way.

He had to act. Before she left the room.

Abandoning all pretense, he strode a step forward and attempted to place both hands on either side of her head, but Jasmine was too quick. She used her unoccupied, baby-less arm to shove him hard in the chest, one quick blow to push him away from her.

"Don't you ever let me catch you doing that voo-doo shit again, or I will go straight to my aunt, do you understand me?" She asked him this as a question, her beautiful face turned horrible in her outrage.

Fortunately, the baby was still screaming loudly enough to cover her words though no one would have heard her either way. Jasmine's voice was low and dangerous, not merely threatening him but _promising_ that she would have him fired and his license taken faster than he could alter her memory any day. He believed her.

He nodded once, finding it very hard indeed to meet her eyes. He felt so shameful, he could surely die from it. How could he have been so _stupid?_ How did he not hear her? How did it not register with him to check if he was completely alone or not?! How _STUPID._

The look she bore as she stared back at him then was unlike anything he had seen her give anyone, even Oakes. She was truly disgusted, horrified, angry and worse than anything else, fearful. Again, he attempted to take a step toward her, but she backed away, shaking her head, bouncing the screaming infant in her arms.

"Get out of here," she spat, taking a full step away from the door. "You won't have any more contact with either of these patients. They're coming to move them upstairs now."

At this, Severus finally found his tongue. "I'm their physician," he argued. "You can't keep me from examining my patients, "

But Jasmine had drawn up to her full and not so considerable height, her expression unfathomable. She leaned forward slightly so she could lower her voice even further beneath the baby's wails and still be heard.

"Fucking watch me."

It was so rare that Jasmine used the almighty F-word that Severus finally relented. Without another word, he chose to believe her versus waiting to find out the hard way and left the room, trusting that Jasmine would get both mother and daughter transferred upstairs safely and under the care of a specialized neonatal and obstetrics physician. Perhaps he could look in a file later and see if the cause of her tricky birth is ever discovered or if the miracle of her life would simply be celebrated instead.

What lie in wait for him with Jasmine was the only thing he could see ahead in his path now. And it felt a bit like staring down a tornado as she now had the full ability to ruin his new life and destroy everything he had worked so hard to correct and manage. Panic was spreading throughout him like shock waves as he walked back to the nurses' station, his heart pounding painfully hard once again. He'd have to go. He could not sit around and wait; this was torture. He would have to flee, go start that life in California he had halfheartedly fantasized about. At the very least, he would have to forfeit his friendship with Jasmine. She would hate him for this, no doubt about it. The look on her face… it hurt him so deeply to keep picturing it in his mind's eye but it was so familiar. He had seen that expression before, so long ago. It could not have happened again.

With a control of mind he did not feel he had earned the right to, Severus sat down at his usual place at the usual nurses' station and linked his fingers together, waiting.

Waiting.

…..

A/N: AHHHHHH! I'M BACK!

You guys! I did it! I graduated college and finished this chapter! I know it was a long one but I felt I owed you all a super long chapter for being so patient with me while I was busy! And you see what happened! WEEEEEEEE

Ugh I've been sitting on this idea for a long long time for this story and it was sooooo nice to finally write it. I do apologize for any insensitivity; I try to write Severus as true to character as I can where the story allows and I feel he's a pretty insensitive guy toward a lot of things. I also wanted to remind that my knowledge of human medicine is pretty limited so please bear with me and don't go rushing to google to correct me haha I'm not a doctor.

But again, I'm so pleased to bring this story back to you full-time! I usually update around every 2-4 weeks on average, depending on other life factors but I'll try to stay regular with it of course. I really hope you guys enjoyed this one and are looking forward to more because I have sooooooo much MORE! This really is such a fun and interesting story to write, I absolutely love it and it's so encouraging that so many other people enjoy it too. Thank you so much for sticking with me and wanting to see more of this story written. It keeps me going to know there are people out there still diggin' it!

Thanks for taking the time to read it and of course, feel free to leave a review if you'd like to. Not a requirement! Or send a message if you're shy or have a question! It's hard to answer questions via reviews but if you've got one, I wanna answer so feel free to message it along. Thanks again, guys. I'm so happy to be back!

-QoM


	18. Welcome to My Cage

**Trigger Warning Kinda? Forearm cut but as a demonstration! Not for harming!**

…..

It was the first night Severus had walked to his car alone in a very long time. He changed in a dizzying blur that night, hoping beyond hope he would find Jasmine sitting there in her usual place at the end of the hall, waiting for him. To talk to him, to scream at him, anything. But as he turned the corner, heart pounding viciously behind his Adam's apple, he found it empty and an audible swear word left his lips. He was not sure he could stand an entire night not knowing what she would do, without any chance to talk to her, to explain himself, to assure her, _swear_ to her that he was not doing anything to harm that baby. Although he could not understand how she could ever think he would harm a newborn in the first place, especially when she had clearly seen the panic all over his face as he struggled to stimulate breath. But that was not the point at the moment. The point was that Jasmine apparently thought he was not only dangerous but some sort of ridiculous religious person, a Satanist perhaps, as she had caught him doing, as she so poignantly put it, 'voo-doo shit', and threatened to have him removed from his post if he used it again.

His grip tightened on the steering wheel as he turned onto the small side road at the south entrance of the hospital, foolishly glancing in his rear-view mirror as if expecting to see Jasmine's angry face up-lit in red from his brake lights. Of course, she was not there, and Severus finally sighed heavily, loudly, groaning as he leaned forward to rest his forehead on the steering wheel, pausing for one moment at a red light. How could he ever make her see? How was he supposed to explain himself? How long had she been standing there? When had she come in? Fuck. If only he'd had a split-second chance to look at her eyes or better yet, get a hold of her to modify her memory.

But even then, with how angry she was at the time, Severus would have had to use considerable force to overpower her and he was not interested in using any sort of physical strength against her, ever. He was much bigger than her in both height and weight, which made her no match for him, but he would never use that to his advantage. Her ex-fiancé had been that type, not him. No, he would simply have to speak to her. Well, not simply… There was nothing simple about any of it anymore. Jasmine had seen him use magic not once but _twice_ that night, maybe more, and there was absolutely no one else to blame for it except himself. His shoulders slumped and his now exhausted grip slipped on the wheel so that just his forehead supported the weight of his upper body.

At that moment, however, a loud car horn blared from behind him and he jumped hard with another loud swear word, hastily pulling out onto the main road to head home. He had half a mind to go straight to Jasmine's place right then, settle it immediately, try to explain some of it, a fraction of it, to her. But on second, third, fourth and fifth thought, he turned down the idea in favor of liquor and his own apartment, figuring that he would look not only absolutely pathetic appearing there in the middle of the night, but also incredibly guilty. There was also the slight off chance that Jasmine would call the police and he would _really_ have to put on a show modifying some memories.

But his apartment was hardly any consolation, offering very little solace for his overtaxed mind. He was exhausted but could not sleep, hungry but unable to eat, restless but unwilling to settle. Nothing sounded like something he wanted to do. He thought foolishly about sending her a message. Not a text message but a real message. But how? If she had been so startled by what he had done, how would she handle it if he sent, say, a Patronus? After a while, Severus finally settled into a lying down position on his bed; not necessarily there for any reason. It was not like he was going to be able to sleep but it was a decent effort regardless, he had to admit.

Arms crossed across his middle, brow so tense his eyebrows could almost touch, his mind tumbled and stumbled circles around itself. On any normal night, Severus was barely able to focus, even on things he _wanted_ to think about and study, but this? He closed his eyes from watching the ceiling fan spin idly and took a deep breath. He had to focus. Jasmine would sooner die than call out of work and the longer he overthought about it, the more strongly he allowed himself to believe that Jasmine would not immediately go to her aunt. So, in summary of his theory, he would be seeing her in less than twenty-four hours.

 _What_ was he going to tell her?

How could he explain it off? It was the only possible eventuality he could see. He would have to explain it away to maybe a prayer or suggest somehow that she misheard him. Again, so much depended on when she had entered the room, how much she had seen or heard…Things that he could not know the answer to without asking her or invading her memory of the event. Maybe she would lock eyes with him at some point during their next shift and he could catch a quick glimpse…Just a quick one though…Staring for too long was distracting and led his mind on too many pointless tangents. Especially not when their entire friendship was at stake… He would have to figure out how to…

Ten dead, solid hours of sleep later, Severus woke with only two hours remaining until the start of his very late shift. He woke slowly, his mind clear, almost immediately aware of how calm he was feeling. His forehead furrowed as he stared at the ceiling high over his bed, the fan spinning silently on high blast. He was not aware of having reached a conclusion on how to handle the situation with Jasmine, so he had no right to be feeling as though he had! His mind had shut him down right as he was getting a handle on it and oddly, he had slept very hard, very deep, with no dreams. As far as he knew, he had not drunk any Sleeping Potion either since he did not have any at the ready, nor had he drunk that much alcohol. No, he had been quite clear-headed when he had come to lie down.

Instead of dwelling however, he grudgingly left his vast bed and trudged to the bathroom, hoping a nice hot shower would not only wake him but spark some intensity in how badly he needed to see and speak to Jasmine. It made his stomach seem to flutter in a way that made him feel…yuck.

At the hospital an hour and a half later, Severus turned into the parking lot, black eyes scanning the rows of cars he passed for any sign of the shiny gray rear end of Jasmine's. He could not help but think fondly on the time she had attempted to back into a parking spot and failed spectacularly. He had not blamed her for it; he was terrible at it too.

Of course she was there, parked nose first in a parking space between two other cars, her own car empty and quiet, with no sign of her standing around nor walking to the staff doors. Severus felt a pang of disappointment at this, but he did not lose hope yet. It was yet another of those eerie gut sensations, but he somehow knew deep down that at some point that night, he would get the chance to speak to her and explain himself. If she still rejected a friendship or acquaintancehip with him, then at least he could say he had tried. There was no use wallowing in it. If he had scared her away with an inadvertent slip of Magic to save such a precious life, so be it. But again…something deep down was telling him to stay at peace. It would be alright.

Leave it to Jasmine to choose the first night she was not speaking to him to look so pretty, he could have sworn it was intentional. She was not wearing any makeup but merely a light lip balm, which smelled so invitingly like fake vanilla that Severus could smell it every time she zoomed past him. Her hair must have been freshly washed as she had chosen to wear it down again in relatively neat, tight, wavy curls with only the sides pulled back away from her face. It was beyond difficult not to stare, but after she had caught him doing it twice from across triage, he forced himself to stop, holding onto that blossom of hope that he would be speaking to her later.

And without fail, it was the longest shift he had ever worked in his life. After midnight, it became unbearably slow, to where even the nurses were struggling to find work and were resorting to 'busy-work' tasks such as filling flush stocks and restocking supply carts. Severus had long since finished his paperwork and was sitting across from a _very_ bored and consequently obnoxious Mark Oakes, who seemed to notice the weird, sudden distance between Dr. Prince and his primary assistant.

"Had a bi' of a marit'al?" he asked in the worst attempt at a Cockney accent Severus had ever heard, after Jasmine had zoomed past the nurses' station, pointedly avoiding him.

He spared Oakes a look of deepest disgust over the top of his neurology journal before returning his gaze to it, struggling defiantly not to let his eyes stray to the corner where her long curls had disappeared moments before.

" _First_ of all, we call it a 'domestic'," he began, tone drawling and dripping with flatness, adding emphasis only to the '-ic'. "Second, I'll thank you to never do that accent in my presence again. And lastly, no, we haven't."

Further down the desk, Oakes t-sked in annoyance, rolling his eyes. "Well, it certainly seems like she's not talking to you, seeing how you two normally won't shut up latel-"

"Yeah," Severus interrupted much too quickly to seem genuinely unconcerned. "She's busy. You see her running 'round here-"

"OK," Oakes finally relented, holding up two hands in defense. "I was just asking. I was starting to like you with her around, that's all."

For a several long moments, nearly ten full seconds, Severus sat there, glaring daggers at Oakes, who had returned to his chart, before he finally said, " _Shut_ up."

Oakes' younger face split a charming grin as he flipped a piece of the chart's paper over to continue writing. "There 'e is," he mumbled, shaking his head.

Finally, after what seemed like an actual lifetime, the end of the shift was approaching. Most of the nursing night shift had gone home already, having been sent home by himself due to the pace of the night. And despite how tired he was having been his own nurse and physician all night for the first time in a while, his eagerness to find Jasmine far outstripped any weariness he may have been owed.

But the downtime during the shift had not been in vain. Severus had sat there, mindlessly letting his eyes wander through the vast journal he perused in his rare times of boredom, plotting. He had formulated a plan, a thoroughly non-magical plan, in order to make sure he did not miss her on her way out of the hospital. She had parked in the normal garage, just like always; he had seen her car and marked its location in his memory. At a quarter to four in the morning, the end of his shift, he had excused himself ahead of time, as Dr. McCann had mercifully arrived a bit early and there was not much to transfer over during the exchange. He rounded the incoming doctor quickly on the one case he admitted, then left for the locker room to change.

His heart was beginning to race.

He had not seen her, even in passing, since around three, three-quarters of an hour ago, but he knew that Jasmine never _ever_ left shifts early. She might have retired to the nurses' lounge or some other place he never went, in an effort to avoid him, but it seemed very unlikely that she had left outright before the end of her shift. Plus, the gut feeling from earlier not only persisted but was growing stronger. He might have worried briefly that she would purposely leave before him, but his instincts told him no, she was there. His calmness had not been in vain.

However, after changing back into his black jeans and gray baseball style cotton shirt, he rounded the corner to the garage hallway and found it empty. He opted against another ping of disappointment and instead walked resolutely to the bench and sat down, stethoscope, ID badge and keys in his lap.

He would wait until sunrise if that's what it took.

But it did not.

Severus had just resigned himself to getting comfortable and was crossing one ankle over his opposite knee to lean back when Jasmine rounded the corner but came to a skidding halt at the opposite end of the hall. Her eyes narrowed on his profile across the distance between them, her hands coming together across her middle to take hold of the strap of her messenger bag. He noticed this motion but chose to ignore it for the time being.

He remained seated but returned her gaze, raising both hands slightly to let them drop into his lap.

"Do I at least get a chance to explain myself?" he asked, fighting very hard indeed to keep his tone as casual and to the point as possible, seeing how Jasmine looked moments from ignoring him flat out and walking straight past him. When her icy blues flashed, Severus continued, softening. He shook his head slowly. "Jasmine, you understand you will have to speak to me again, eventually," he said more quietly, allowing his lips to curl only the slightest bit to show he was attempting to wave a white flag.

Down the hall, he could see Jasmine's weight shift from one foot to another, her hands twisting her messenger bag strap uncertainly. Despite these anxiety markers, her voice and expression were quite steady when she spoke.

"Not necessarily," she replied in a very snotty, defiant tone, one that she typically only took on when they both knew she was wrong and being stubborn.

When he forewent a reply but merely stared back at her, eyebrow arched sharply, she rolled her eyes and finally approached, with something of a stomp akin to a child having a tantrum. Severus rose from the bench, attempting very hard not to grin. He forced his expression to remain as smooth and inscrutable as possible, allowing himself only a small smirk, one that he hoped looked inviting and warm versus…insane?

"Please talk to me," he asked again, in something of a defeated tone, motioning to the door. "We can go wherever you want, wherever you'll feel comfortable. I just-,"

A deep sigh heaved his chest once.

"- need to explain."

What he _wanted_ to say was '-don't like not having you around me and hate knowing that you're fearful (or something) of me now'. But he felt that would sound a bit pathetic on his part, even if it was true. He had seen expressions like the one she had worn the previous night. It had been horrifyingly familiar. He could hear the distant echo of a slamming portrait as she had shoved him away from her. But that was not the point anymore. That was from a different life, this was something new entirely. _The two were not the same._ He had not done anything wrong this time. He had to explain and he _would not_ allow himself to be robbed of their relationship without the opportunity to do so.

As he looked down at her expectantly, Jasmine flushed a delicate pink, using her watch as an excuse to glance down and hide her face momentarily. A few curls fell over her shoulder with the motion and Severus was visited by a mad urge to push them back again for her. He resisted.

"It's just now four," she announced pointlessly, still doing everything in her power not to look at him. "We can go to that little coffee shop across the street again if you want. They just opened," She paused to rearrange her expression, as though in the shock of his invitation she had forgotten to look forbidding. A delicate sniff passed through her nose before she turned on her heel. "I'll meet you there but I'm not staying long," she said shortly before continuing toward the garage.

Severus trudged after her, smirking.

She had looked up at him just long enough.

The drive across the street had not been near enough time for Severus to change his mind nor his plan but his heart continued to pound away inside his chest and increased in strength tenfold when he noticed Jasmine rising from inside her car a few spaces away. She did not say a word as she approached, taking more care than usual to tuck her keys into her bag. He purposely waited until she had drawn level with him before he began walking, but she still avoided getting too near him or Heaven forbid look at him for even a second.

The shop had indeed only just opened as grumpy-looking, bleary-eyed baristas readied large thermoses of coffee behind the counter and placed trays of pastries into the glass-front case. Severus paused to scowl at them momentarily but glanced down as Jasmine stepped past both him and the registers in favor of the high-top bar table they had occupied months before in happier times. He followed, motioning to the register in confusion.

"You don't want-" he began to ask but Jasmine cut across him, absentmindedly brushing her arm across the table to wipe away a random speck of napkin fuzz.

"I want to go home, so if you want to talk, hurry up and do it, please," she answered curtly, leaving Severus with one moment in which to look taken aback at her attitude.

He rolled his eyes, pulling out the barstool chair opposite her and sliding into it. Jasmine may have been sweet and all the rest of it but when she was angry, she got downright nasty.

Now that he was sitting there across from her watching him expectantly, Severus felt his heart rate begin to climb, blood thundering through his veins.

"Jasmine, I- er…"

He paused, giving just enough time for her to let out a huff of impatience and roll her eyes. He continued, ignoring this but with difficulty.

"So, I'm a wizard."

What sort of reaction he had been expecting to this proclamation, Severus was not sure. He had never before needed to _admit_ this fact to a Muggle before, so he had very little gauge on how she ought to respond or for what he should be bracing. He had not, however, expected her to stare at him blankly for a moment, then laugh. His somewhat anxious expression fell as he watched her lean back and shake her head, her normally warm eyes cold and detached.

"Really?" she asked in an incredulous, disappointed sort of voice. "That's what you're going with? A _wizard?"_

"Quiet…" Severus warned, glancing at the door and using the turn of his head to simultaneously check that the shop's staff was preoccupied. He should have cast Muffliato but had foregone it in favor of Jasmine.

"No, seriously," she spoke over him. "Try again."

"I'm not _joking,_ Jasmine," he implored her, starting to bristle with the beginnings of annoyance. Was this common for Muggles at first? "What do you think you saw?" He asked this very seriously, hoping she would give him a legitimate answer. Part of him even hoped she would admit she had no idea what she had seen so he would have a chance to say, 'just kidding' and play the whole thing off as a big joke.

"I don't know what I saw," she stated, shrugging as she focused on fidgeting with a torn off shred of napkin she had balled up with her fingernail. "All I know is that I saw a blue baby turn pink and start screaming after you touched her and said something that sounded like a spell, _after_ you disappear from the room with her. If that doesn't look like witchcraft, I don't-"

At this, Severus interrupted, leaning forward slightly to lower his voice. His heart was pounding very hard now. Finally, they were getting somewhere.

"It _is_ witchcraft," he implored her, though immediately regretted his choice of words when her eyes flashed. "No, not… _evil_ witchcraft in the way you're thinking. It's-"

Again, Jasmine interrupted him. "I don't _care_ what it was," she mumbled, shaking her head and folding her arms across her red and white shirt bearing the faded legend _Pokemon: Gotta Catch 'Em All!_ "I just never expected to see you do it in the hospital. My aunt said you were…'religious', but…"

The little prickling annoyance Severus had been beginning to feel suddenly exploded into anger at this name-drop but with great force of will, he held it back, choked it down. He could not afford to lose his temper and say something stupid; not right now. He shook his head, leaning forward slightly on the table with his elbows apart, fingers linked together.

"Jasmine, listen to me," he said quietly, lowering his voice to a range only audible to the two of them. "I am not a…I'm…"

At that moment, his eyes slipped down to her hand on the table before him, where she continued to pick at the white paper napkin distractedly, as though her fingers simply needed something to do. Without warning, Severus snatched the napkin away from her, glancing over his shoulder once again as he balled it up in the palm of his right hand, hidden from the view of others by his chest. Jasmine had flinched so pitifully at the sudden motion, something he thought she had stopped doing. Apparently not. He would work on that later.

A moment later, a very faint but distinct floral scent began to drift from between his fingers and he unclenched his grip to drop one perfect, fragrant sprig of jasmine blooms on the table in front of her. The human Jasmine's eyes widened for one milli-moment as she reached out to very carefully pick up the green stem. Severus could not help but allow himself a smirk.

"I promise you I'm telling the truth," he said gently, watching as she turned the small white flowers over in her hands. "I can do real mag-"

"-Magic tricks, yeah," Jasmine interrupted him again, dropping the flowers onto the table again. "Look, I don't care what you believe or what you can or can't do," she continued, and for one fleeting moment, Severus was reminded of Sinclair and he _hated_ it. He skipped past this determinedly. Jasmine was nothing like her aunt…however frustrating she was being at the moment. "The point is, you used… _that_ on a patient. I'm not a religious person by any means but prayers and well-wishes don't involve actually touching a patient or interfering beyond medicine."

Unable to contain himself, Severus replied, "So I'm supposed to let my patients die then, just so I don't use a simple, undetectable spell that can easily save-"

As he was speaking, however, he noticed Jasmine's expression change from one of listening and concern, to one more closely in line with the one she wore the previous night. He paused, bracing for it, making it clear that he had noticed her sudden turn in demeanor.

"What do you mean 'patients'?" she asked, eyes boring holes into his. "Are you telling me that you've used this on others? You've done these…tricks on other patients?" Her voice was gaining a horrible note of shrillness he had come to identify with the approach of a very nasty temper.

He shook his head, bracing for it. "I use it to _save lives_ , Jas-"

While Severus had fully expected maybe a slap in the face, or even a good loud gasp of horror, he had not at all expected her to suddenly rise from the bar table with the loud 'thunk' of a knee on something painful-sounding. Within seconds, she was to the door and stepping out into the black, early morning, but Severus did not bother calling or chasing after her. Instead, he got up from the table and strode casually to the restroom doors, fortunately very near their table.

The sound of Apparition was unheard by the staff as steam wands in hot milk whistled and shrieked behind the espresso machines.

Jasmine had just extracted her keys from her bag and unlocked her car when Severus appeared suddenly with another loud 'crack', within arm's reach of her. The scream of shock she let out was brief but ear-splitting but he began speaking hastily in an effort to head her off. Very gently, he reached out, placing both hands on her arms, gripping her with enough pressure to hold her still but not enough to make her feel trapped.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!"

She screamed this at the top of her lungs and Severus could not help but stifle a laugh behind his loud 'SHHH'.

The parking lot was dim beneath the old streetlights and the earliest hour of morning was black as ever, but he could still see her eyes and she could see his, though he did not need to search them again as he had done earlier. He had already seen within them her sadness, her desire to be wrong, her deepest, strongest hope that he would prove her wrong, show her that he was not crazy or out to harm anyone. He would not modify her memory but instead invite her to learn. She did say she wanted to be friends, right?

"Jasmine, I want you to listen to me and I want you to listen well, do you understand?" he asked, using his grip on her arms to turn her slightly so he could see her a bit more clearly beneath the streetlight far over their heads. "Do not interrupt because I'm not letting you go until you've heard me."

It was a testament to how much she wanted to trust him that two heavy tears slipped between her bottom lashes, down her flushed cheeks to land and form dark spots on the red material of her shirt. She nodded, blinking slowly.

"The magic in my blood is a gift," These words left him as a firm statement. "I decided that a very long time ago, at a young age. I have never lost sight of it." He paused, readjusting his grip on her arms using only his long fingers. "I may not have always used it for good, but I have never taken my gift for granted."

Jasmine merely blinked, staring up at his shadowed face, watching him speak with something akin to raptness on her face. If she was scared, she was not showing it; she was listening. Severus let his gaze very quickly bounce down to her parted lips and suddenly became aware of his hands on her warm arms. He let go but continued.

"I have only ever used magic on patients in order to benefit them or save their lives. I need you to understand that." He raised his eyebrows to indicate sincerity. "I hope you know I would never-"

His sentence trailed off and at last, Jasmine seemed to understand him, though she appeared to be having difficulty finding the right words. He understood the struggle. Her face was half hidden by shadows but what Severus could see of it, the trails from her tears seemed to have dried. He watched her profile and held his breath, waiting…

He honestly had not the faintest idea whether he had made any sense at all. His words were coming out jumbled and confused to even his own ears, his mind working so hard to figure out how to explain anything to her that random thoughts were coming out instead. Where could he start? How could she ever understand? He would need hours, days, _years_ to explain everything to her.

As evidence of how much information she had just received and how outlandish it was in nature, Jasmine laughed wearily, rubbing her fingers across her forehead.

"Severus, what you're saying isn't possible," she finally replied, dropping her arms to look up at him with fresh disappointment in her gaze, as though pitying him for being a lunatic. "Magic isn't real. I don't know what you were doing to that baby or however many other patients but it's just not real and you know it."

At his wit's end, Severus allowed himself a semblance of a smirk. "Prove it," he instructed, nodding his head at her.

Jasmine now gave him a look of profound mistrust and confusion. Her view of him as a mentally competent member of society was deteriorating before his very eyes.

"What? Prove it? That magic isn't real?" she asked hotly.

Severus nodded, smirking even more broadly. "Yes, prove it. If you're so certain magic isn't real, then prove it, go on." He crossed his arms across his middle.

At last, Jasmine gave a genuine laugh and rolled her eyes, apparently torn between exasperation and amusement. "I can't prove something isn't real, obviously. It doesn't work like that. One would have to prove the existence, not base the existence on the lack of proof against it." For another moment, she paused, then tossed one hand in the air in frustration. " _You_ prove it! You're the one claiming to be a ' _wizard'."_ Her fingers formed air-quotes around the word.

Annoyed but thoroughly overjoyed at the apparent return to her usual intelligent, spicy gusto, Severus nodded his head across the parking lot to the shadowed dumpster area behind the shop. "Alright then, follow me," he instructed, turning to walk in the direction he had indicated.

Jasmine stayed put.

"What? Wait," she asked, sounding impatient. "Follow you where?"

Severus was growing rather impatient himself as he reluctantly turned to face her fully, broad, angular shoulders shrugging. "You told me to prove it, so I'm _trying to do that,"_ he explained, once again motioning to the deep, inviting shadows across the parking lot. But when Jasmine seemed to hesitate even further, he exhaled a breath, extending his hand palm up to her. "Do you trust me?"

It was hardly a simple question. And for her candor, he was forced to wait through an incredible moment of silence before-

"Yes, but-"

Severus smirked.

"Come with me. We aren't going far."

He was being only partially truthful.

Twenty or so feet from her car, they stopped, both obscured in darkness where the shadow of the building and the light from the streetlamps met. Jasmine seemed uneasy, despite her admission of trust in him, as she had not taken his hand at first. But it was now important that she do so. When Severus stopped walking to turn and look down at her, she glanced at the ground around their feet as though expecting a magic carpet to appear. He held out his hand again.

"If you want proof, you'll need to grip my hand tightly," he instructed, nodding his head at his outstretched palm.

With a falsely confident chuckle, Jasmine slapped her hand into his, interlocking her fingers with his. Severus was taken aback by this but ignored it as she rolled her eyes and tightened her grip.

"What, are you gonna make flowers pop out of-"

"Don't let go, no matter what happens."

"Oh, ok, Gandal-"

He spun hard on the spot.

 _CRACK_

Within three seconds, their feet met solid ground again, cushioned by a much softer, springier surface on which to stand. A gust of wind brushed past them, bringing with it the earthy scent of salt and trees. Darkness pressed in around them, save for the sliver of moon overhead but Severus knew exactly where he was. Jasmine, however, did not. She had landed beside him, hand clenched tightly against his own. She was not shaking, nor did she sway nor give any outward indication that she was about to faint.

But faint she did, and in a perfectly ridiculous way that only Jasmine could have done. She crumpled like a properly detonated building, from her feet to her head, a simply elegant, vertical collapse into a small ball on the ground. It had been so abrupt that her hand remained clenched in his and only separated from it due to the difference in their heights and her sudden rendezvous with gravity.

Heart lighter than it had been in, well, longer than he could remember, Severus let out one genuine laugh and sank to the ground on his ankles, balancing on the heels of his black running shoes as he pressed his pointer finger to her neck to check her pulse. She was fine. While he was there, he reached out to move a few curls away from her face, taking advantage of her momentary unconsciousness to do so. It was only because he knew she would not object were she awake that he did this. It was just too bold a move for him, he could admit that.

Whatever brilliance he possessed had told him to bring his wand to the hospital and he had done so, but kept it in his car, only taking it with him once he had arrived at the coffee shop. Stomach fluttering with anticipation, he hastily withdrew it from the elastic band of his boxer briefs beneath his jeans and conjured a very plush bed from bits of grass and leaves he transfigured into downy feathers. Jasmine rose eerily from the ground as the pearly white mattress appeared beneath her and her body bounced slightly as it sprang to a low but considerable height.

The motion seemed to jar her back to consciousness as she jolted awake with a gasp and sat bolt upright on the mattress. Severus sat down gently beside her, sighing somewhat dramatically as he surveyed his surroundings with a casual air of familiarity. Jasmine seemed to be coming to grips with a lot of things all at once and he felt he could understand why. The sensation of Apparition was very uncomfortable, even to those who did it often or understood magical things of the sort. There was also the aspect of disappearing one place and appearing somewhere else. That part baffled even the most learned wizards. Briefly, he wondered if he had perhaps literally blown her mind and might have done better to save it for later. To Jasmine, all of this, _all of it_ , was going to be new. Severus would do very well to remember that.

"Wha-" she breathed, blinking hard and swaying slightly as she turned her head to take in the area around her. "Where are-…what happened?!" she eventually shrieked, squeezing her eyes shut again to grip her head with both hands.

It was very cute, but Severus did not laugh. He cleared his throat and motioned lazily at the land and rocky cliff edge before them.

"We did something known as Disapparating," he explained steadily, smirking as he relented to his deepest desire and turned his head to look at her, to watch her while she absorbed all this new information. "We disappeared from Boston and are now a very long way away, in a different time zone even."

Jasmine was still blinking blearily ahead of her, head cocked slightly to one side, well-groomed eyebrows arched sharply in utter confusion. "We left?" she asked in a level tone, one that Severus took to mean her curiosity was taking over her initial panic. "Where…are we?" Finally, she turned her head to look over at him and his smirk expanded beyond his control.

He shrugged, turning his attention back to the horizon. "I was hoping you could guess," he replied lightly, shrugging with what he hoped was a maddeningly casual sigh. When Jasmine's eyebrows contorted again into a frown, he let out a short laugh. "It is in the United States."

Satisfied with that clue, Jasmine turned her attention to the horizon as he had done and scowled at it for a moment, before turning slightly on the cushy mattress to see the mountain looming behind them.

"Holy shit…" she breathed, shaking her head and closing her eyes. "Hoooly shit, we really are-…For a minute, I thought it was just an illusion but that…We really are-"

The urge to shout 'I TOLD YOU SO' was overwhelming on a degree unfamiliar to Severus with Jasmine thus far but he bit it back in favor of a grin. "I suppose I could make an illusion like this," He motioned to the view in front of them before nodding his head at the magnificent mountains behind them. "Can't do that though."

While he spoke, Jasmine had been staring around again, apparently too shocked to pay much attention, but that was fine with him. He wanted her to see and experience whatever she needed to believe and understand him. He did not have the heart to tell her that if she did not and proceeded to hold a hostility against him or God forbid tell her aunt, they would likely never see each other again. He would have to disappear. He _needed_ her to understand.

After a while, after she had taken several deep, clearing breaths of fresh mountain and sea air, she spoke. "Are we…" she hesitated, her voice already thick and choked sounding. Severus felt his stomach clench. "Are we in California?" she asked, finally turning to look up at him, watery blue eyes focused on his through the scant moonlight provided by the sickle moon.

Maintaining their eye contact, Severus nodded slowly.

"We are," he confirmed. A tear leaked loose of her lashes and trickled down her cheek. Severus looked away, back to the dark horizon. "I've been Apparating here since I came to America. To practice magic and…vent or get away from the city when I need to."

Jasmine cleared her throat, swiping her hand across her cheek so quickly to clear the wet trail, it might have been a blur. With the motion of this, she must have caught sight of the mattress beneath her, as she suddenly shifted to the side and pushed her hands down into it.

"Was this here?" she asked, plucking at the white material, possibly flabbergasted that something this clean-looking could exist in nature.

Severus allowed himself a small laugh as he shook his head. "No, I conjured it when you fainted," he said, thoroughly enjoying how casually and off-hand he could just…say that now. And it was _extremely_ easy. His magic was the last frontier for Jasmine if she truly wanted to get to know him. So much of who he was as a person, as a man, was steeped in magic and sorcery, things that she would have to commit to understanding, at least a simple version, in order to truly know him on a deeper level. His identity as a Muggle only went so far.

Next to him, Jasmine shook her head. "You _what?"_ she asked, staring at him open-mouthed.

God, this was going to be too fun.

His wand had been lying in his lap, but he picked it up and flicked it lazily. A cushy pillow appeared in midair between them and plopped down onto the mattress with a soft ' _poof'_.

Her face was priceless. Severus hoped to remember it for the rest of this life and the next.

Her eyebrows arched sharply, her jaw quite literally fell open, with such speed and force that he heard her jaw give a pop. She reached out for the pillow immediately and squeezed it with her hands, seemingly unable to believe that it was a real object. After a few moments of inspection, she once again shook her head in incredulity and stuffed the pillow into her lap to lean on it.

"But…" she stammered. "… _How?"_

At this, Severus finally stood up from the mattress and took a few steps away from her, before turning back and giving a vague mock bow of his head.

"Wizard," he stated singularly, using the tip of his wand to indicate himself.

Jasmine bounced back rapidly.

"Doctor," she replied firmly, pointing at him.

Severus scowled at her.

"Yes. Doctor," he growled, resting his hands on his narrow waist, wand included. "But also, _wizard_." He stated the last word with emphasis before he was struck with a sudden idea. Jasmine took his momentary distraction and silence as a space to interject.

"I would think your first priority is being a doctor to these people, not a- a-…"

The silver of a short, black-handle knife caught the moonlight just enough to catch her attention. Her voice trailed as she watched him, her eyes so large he could practically see himself reflected within them.

"Being a doctor _is_ my first priority," he explained, purposely making his voice very even so she would not think he was truly about to harm himself. The pinkie from his knife-bearing right hand tugged upward on the three-quarter length sleeve of his shirt on his left arm, exposing his forearm and the scar from his 'tattoo'. Apparently, the change in his tone had not been enough as Jasmine still let out a squeal of horror when he glided the knife upward from his wrist past several inches of soft forearm. It began to bleed freely, traveling toward his fingertips with speed.

Jasmine gasped, rising hastily from the mattress toward him, hands outstretched. He had not cut himself anywhere remotely deep enough to truly harm himself, it really was only a surface cut, but he let her fuss for one moment before he reached out, dragging his fingertips along the cut and focusing on the incantation. And before her eyes, the cut began to slowly stop oozing, the blood drying along his arm as though a fan had been put on it. Severus could feel the edges of it tingling and tightening as the capillaries began to pump out clotting factors, the skin began to epithelialize and contract; it was healing itself.

Her small, soft hands reached out to lightly grip his exposed forearm, and whether she meant to or not, when she moved to brush two fingers along the now clotted and healing wound, they brushed against his destroyed but scarred Dark Mark. He did not want to yank his arm back in any sort of suspicious manner, but he did slowly pull it away from her, unwilling to let something so blameless, something so pretty and light touch something so dark. The mark of an organization that would have gladly seen her dead without a second thought.

Severus swallowed hard on his Adam's apple as she turned her head to look up at him.

When were they supposed to have _that_ conversation?

Pushing past this, he took a deep breath. "I haven't always done the right thing in the past," he admitted, hoping she would allow him to be vague for the time being. "But I made a new life for myself to start over and…try to…help." Broad shoulders rose and dropped in a heavy shrug. "Healing is the only way I could think to do that."

Jasmine had been staring raptly up at his face in the shadows of the field and surrounding forest, but looked down, her gaze coming to rest somewhere over the middle of his chest. A deep breath made her own chest rise and fall, her collarbones moving with the motion, before she shook her head, her now messy curls frizzy and wild with the wind and salt air. She looked so at home and beautiful for it. A smile parted her lips.

"So?" she asked, arching one eyebrow.

Severus hesitated, tossing his arms impatiently, wand held loose in his right hand. "So what?" he asked somewhat hotly. He wished she would hurry up and say whatever it was she wanted. "So you're going to go tell your blessed-"

Jasmine interrupted him with volume.

" _So,_ are you gonna show me what you've got or not?" she asked in correction, folding her arms across her chest. "You say you're a wizard, so it _better_ be good."

And with that she turned and walked a few paces away before turning back and watching him expectantly. Only then did Severus see a very cheeky but pleased grin on her face and only then did he allow one onto his own.

He raised his wand.

He had seen enough of her world.

It was time for her to see his.

A/N:

YOU GUYS!

Thanks SO much for the support on that last one. It was incredibly long and took a very long time to write so I appreciate the positive feedback. If you didn't enjoy it, that's alright too. I hope this one made up for it for you!

I absolutely adoreeeee this chapter. I have had it planned for forever (that's pretty much all of the chapters in this story hah) And the more I write Jasmine, the more I just love her. She is modeled after a few other fictional and nonfictional characters. One of the characters that influenced Jasmine's development is from the U.S. show called Parks and Rec(reation). Can anyone guess who it is? It's a woman! There are others but I would love to see who you guess she is influenced by! Severus has a few other character traits inspired by other fictional characters but only ONLY because he did have to be modified just a tiny bit for the AU aspect of this story. One of his influences is from a BBC show and a male character very near to my heart in that I have a major crush on the character. Another of his influences was a male doctor character on a hit American medical show (not on the air anymore- sad. One of my favorite shows. Part of what got me into diagnostic medicine.) And again, there are others but if you can guess from those clues let me see it!

I expect to have the new chapter done much more quickly than this one so stay tuned for that! I'm so excited to continue! I promise we will see Severus show off for Jasmine, don't worry. I PROMISEEEEEEE. This chapter was meant to include that but it would be wayyyyy too impossibly long so HANG IN THERE!

I love you guys!

And thanks again for the awesome reviews and adds and everything, I soooo appreciate it. It really and truly makes my day when I get even one review or an add/follow. It makes such a difference to a writer since they are never expected but always appreciated. And I do! SO much.

Thanks again! - QoM


	19. Let's Go Up In Flames, Pretty Lady

A/N: WOAH! Two updates in one week? CRAZY! Haha I am really excited to be past the landmark of Jasmine finding out about Sev's magic, so….maybe prepare for a little bit speedier updates? I hope you guys enjoy this one. I've decided that this story is going to continue on past the formal 'ending'. I just adore this pairing and where I'm planning to take them. So have no fear, this story will be just as long, if not longer than my other ones. I don't even have a guestimate on how long this one will be from where it stands now, so just hang tight! If you don't like it, that's super coolzies, just head on out, cap'n. If you like it, check out my Instagram and facebook pages for this story. Info is in another small author's note at the end of the chapter. Anyway, I LOVE IT SO HERE'S SOME MORE.

…..

The only other time Jasmine could ever remember feeling so overwhelmed with information was her first month in nursing school, over ten years prior. She had, of course, been witness and participant in more stressful events than she could accurately count in the years between, but _nothing_ had ever made her head swim and her mind buzz like this. It was as though someone had wrapped her brain in wire mesh that would not allow synapses to fire. She absolutely could not wrap her mind around what Severus had told her, though she had to admit, it did make sense of a few things. Such as why he was so averse to using technology, for instance. Why use a faulty ultrasound when he could simply use…what was it? X-ray vision? It was no wonder he had been able to go so long without using nurses.

After challenging him to prove his…magical powers to her (it sounded absolutely insane even in her own head), Jasmine had stood there, dumbfounded, as he flicked the 'wand' in his hand upward. A whistling noise much like a firecracker pierced the blustery silence on the grassy field as a small ball of light erupted from the tip of the instrument and sped upward toward the sky. The noise followed it, fading away into the distance above them.

She only had to wait two seconds before the entire sky was suddenly illuminated, as though daylight had snuck up on them and jumped out from behind the mountains. Her hands had flown up to shield her eyes from the abrupt light, but a few feet away, she could hear Severus' deep baritone mumbling something under his breath. The blazing light dimmed slightly in intensity, allowing Jasmine to lower her hands and raise her eyes. She needed to blink a few times before she was able to look around properly.

As she straightened up, her breath escaped her in one long, slow exhale.

It was the most stunning view she had ever seen. And she had lived there her entire life.

The noise and lights of Boston had gone, or rather they had gone from it, and far below them, she could hear the crashing of massive waves on ancient boulders and cliffs, the low roar of wind ravaging the mountains, forests and the landscape that held home for them all. Her heart felt as though it could climb out of her chest with how much she missed her home state, to the point that a few hiccups caused her shoulders to lurch, but she held it back with great difficulty. It really was not just the view, she admitted privately, it was everything. It was possible that she had been so angry the night before, she had never truly processed what happened or the hurtful things she had said to him in her anger. It had been surprising to her how strongly she reacted, especially now that she knew what it had really been. But then again, her first thought had been that she was going to have to tell her aunt that her close friend was practicing inappropriate medicine on his patients. She finally understood that this was not the case, but it did not completely erase that horrible feeling of dread she had experienced overnight. She really believed that Dr. Prince was about to be fired and it would be because of her. Therefore, it was highly possible that relief had mingled itself into her emotions, settling amongst them like a warm blanket, something comforting for her mind to curl up in after having convinced herself that she could never work with him again.

It was real. He was a _wizard._

She turned her head to look up at Severus, who had been watching her intently, studiously, as he usually did, and her stomach clenched. He made no attempt to look away quickly, but merely allowed one corner of his mouth to twitch in a smirk.

Again, his low voice mumbled deeply a word that sounded like ' _Nox_ ' perhaps Latin, before the light he had produced went out and plunged them back into darkness. Jasmine sank into another furious blinking fit, her retinas protesting angrily at the abrupt changes in light on such a large scale. However, just as she had been about to open her mouth to inform him that her eyeballs were melting, one more small blue light appeared, much closer to her. It flickered pleasantly like real flame but silent, and only once Jasmine opened her eyes to look at it more closely did she see that it _was_ real flame and was issuing from the tip of his black wand. The pale blue light cast by it illuminated the rest of the wooden wand and his strong hand grasping it.

"Hold out your hands," he said quietly from somewhere above the top of her head; he was beyond the scope of light from the small flame.

At first, Jasmine hesitated but not for long, doubting very much that he would invite her to do something that would hurt her, although she felt it was only natural that she hesitated. It was not every day she was asked to hold out her hands to receive fire. She must remember to stay cautious in the future as well.

She did as he had instructed and held her hands out in a cupped fashion, cringing slightly in anxiety as he lowered the lit tip of the wand toward them. There was no telling what it would feel like and in response to this new phenomenon, her heart was pounding out of control, feeling as though she must be running, not standing perfectly still. It was incredibly difficult not to let her hands shake, but with the flickering dance of the flame, it was likely he would not have seen them moving anyway.

As the tip of the wand met the edge of her open hands, the flame spread from the wood to her skin, cooler and heavier than she had been expecting. A deep breath of air passed into her lungs as she inhaled a slow gasp, watching the blue flames dance across her palms, her eyes dazzled. Severus' voice was very close to her when he spoke, deep and quiet, the deepest notes seeming to originate within his chest. Jasmine was unsure whether she had instinctively moved closer to him or if he had stepped closer to watch the fire over her shoulder. Either way, she was finding it very difficult not to give a shudder as his chest rumbled beside her shoulder.

"These are called Bluebell Flames," he explained. Jasmine felt goosebumps rise up along her skin like vast ranges of miniature mountains. Thank goodness for the fire in her hands. "They provide warmth but do not burn and can be carried about in a jar or a bag."

"That's amazing!" Jasmine breathed, finally ungluing her gaze from the flames to look up at him, beaming in what she knew had to be a ridiculous sort of way. "What else?" she asked more eagerly than she meant to.

Severus let out one of those charming, deep laughs of his. "You're not easily impressed, are you?"

She shrugged sheepishly, passing the Flames back to him and dusting her hands off on her jeans though the fire had left no traces of its existence on her skin. "Sorry! I just…I don't know, it's all so unbelievable."

At this, he let out a mockingly derisive snort and took a few steps away from her, turning his back for a moment in playful offense, hands clasped together behind him, wand included. Jasmine was reminded for one moment of his stethoscope; this was his tool from his _other_ life. "However, you seem perfectly willing to believe _Gandalf,"_ He turned only slightly to look back at her over his shoulder, a very snide expression on his face. "Isn't that what you called me before we Apparated?"

At this, Jasmine felt it was finally safe for her to assume that he was only teasing her in his very characteristic, sometimes difficult to read sense of humor. She let out a giggle of both relief and amusement and approached him, tossing her hands in the air. "Oh, stop. He's just one of my favorite characters. The only wizard I was ever impressed by." When she stopped walking, she crossed her arms again, cocking one hip to the right and her head to the left. "I'm assuming you know who Gandalf is?" She asked this last bit with a bit of a bite to her tone, to match his method of what she felt she could tentatively assume was flirting.

He turned to face her slowly, smirking as the black pits he wore as eyes glittered in the half-darkness. It was not immediately clear to her whether she had imagined it or not, but she sort of thought she saw those abysmal eyes flicker downward along her frame before returning to her face.

Hmm, encouraging.

"You really believe I lived under a rock in the middle of nowhere, do you not?" he asked, his normally low voice dropped nearly an octave to something closer to a growl. "Of course, I know who _Gandalf_ is." He concluded this conversation by walking away from her abruptly, straight forward toward the dark horizon where the ocean met the sky. Jasmine hesitated at first and was in the process of deciding whether or not to follow him when he turned his head to ask over his shoulder, "He was the short one, right?"

A loud laugh made her double slightly and she finally trotted off after him, beyond interested to see more of this 'gift' he had talked about. So far, so impressive. At the moment, however, she was briefly wondering it could be that she was finding most attractive about him- how his hair had come quite loose in the wind and was blowing about his face like black velvet ribbons, or perhaps how she had just learned that not only was he a gifted doctor but could also do magic? Was quite literally a wizard apparently? Or perhaps it was how happy he seemed, how at ease and comfortable he appeared to be feeling. She wanted to believe that it was because of her somehow, but more deeply, she felt that he was most relieved to be able to do magic around her, more openly in the hospital. Yes, she would continue to work with him, no doubt about that. She did not think she could stand going back to work at normal hours, without him there. But there would have to be rules, and therefore exceptions, which they would need to discuss at some point sooner rather than later. But not yet. He was having fun, likely for the first time in a very long time, and so was she.

No matter what it was, she _had_ to stop flirting with him. It was dangerous. He had never once shown any physical or verbal indication that he was attracted to her as anything more than a friend. At first, admittedly, she had wondered if he was perhaps not attracted to women. He was over the age of forty, not married and not divorced, not dating anyone…It was only natural that she wonder about his sexuality, no matter how briefly. Though after consulting with Rebecca early on about this, Jasmine had been assured that Dr. Prince certainly seemed straight as there was legend of a date he had gone on with a female doctor who no longer worked at the hospital. She had ignored a stab of jealousy at that news but had felt encouraged that he at least was not attracted to the same things she was.

"If I say the line can you do, like…" She paused when he held out his arm and stopped abruptly, to prevent her from walking too close to the stony edge of the grassy hill, just in case she was not paying attention. Which she was not. Jasmine did stop but she did not lose her train of thought and looked up at him excitedly. "-flames or something?"

…

Severus could not help but grin at the silly, hopeful expression on her face before he shrugged, nodding his head toward the horizon. "That is why I walked over here," he admitted, turning the face the water as Jasmine laughed. "Go for it."

Finally, a real chance to show off.

She had said Gandalf was the only wizard she'd ever been impressed by.

" _You shall not pass!"_

 _Incendio maxima_

Gandalf the Gray had nothing on him.

Tongues of flame the size of commercial airlines burst from the tip of his wand, roaring along on the wind as they shot out over the water, the bright yellow, orange and red reflecting their fury over the black, rolling waves far below. He vaguely heard Jasmine let out a squeal of surprise and she took a step back from the edge, hands raised to her mouth as her jaw fell open. He glanced over for only a moment to see the fire reflected in her large eyes before he returned his attention to controlling the inferno he had created in the sky. The fire swarmed and churned above them, swirling and massing in areas, thinning in others. It would have consumed anything in the air. Hopefully no birds had been nearby.

As he raised his wand, disconnecting the incantation, the roar of the flames subsided instantly, and Jasmine exhaled a loud, exhilarated breath, her hands still clasped together in front of her chin.

It was so quick, Severus thought he might have imagined it. Jasmine made a tiny movement, only a slight jerk in his direction, but for one fleeting instant, it appeared as though she was about to run at him or jump at him. So strong was this momentary inclination that Severus felt himself tense inwardly in preparation to catch her or move or…something. But she did not move and instead laughed, shaking her head.

"Wow," she breathed. "I was _not_ expecting that."

Severus smirked, glancing down before moving to sit on the very edge of the cliff, where Jasmine joined him only a moment later. Her legs dangled freely, swinging back and forth gently while his own heels came to rest on a small rocky ledge below him. Still absorbed by her random movement in his direction, he absentmindedly lifted and flicked his wand toward the sky. A soft-looking stream of vibrant green light emerged from the tip and flew out over the water, reflecting its color across the inky ocean. Another jet of teal-blue joined it a moment later, the two colors creating a lovely effect against each other. He heard Jasmine sigh another 'wow' from a foot or two to his left.

This night could not have gone better if he had magically interfered in it. He was sitting on the edge of a sheer cliff face, showing Jasmine _magic_ , at long last able to fully be himself and allow her further into his life. Not… _completely_ himself, but it was a good start, he supposed. She still did not know of his past in detail and as far as he was concerned, it could wait. He had already eluded to the fact that he had some demons in his past, some skeletons in the proverbial closet so to speak, and he knew that Jasmine was no fool nor deaf. She had heard him perfectly fine and was very likely only being polite by not asking him openly about it. He knew he would have to tell her more eventually but…not tonight. Not yet. He could not bear to see her look at him so revolted again so soon.

That thought brought forth a torrent of unbidden memories, which caused the hair on the back of his neck to rise, despite the momentary lack of wind. His eyes dropped to the wand in his hand, which he turned in his fingers, shifting it as he attempted to remember the last time he had cast his Patronus. It had to have been in the Forest of Dean, showing Potter where he had hidden the sword. The doe had been so strikingly beautiful that night, glistening more brilliantly white than any of the pristine snow on the ground around her. Her giant eyes had looked at him, blinking those heavily lashed lids at him in understanding as he had whispered her instructions. His memory was acutely sharp but he could not remember casting her since that night.

Dare he?

Jasmine would think it was beautiful and it would be interesting to see how she interacted with the doe, but…

Severus' shoulders sank slightly as he remembered that Muggles could not see Patronuses, nor any of the demons they were meant to protect against. His stomach gave something of an uneasy lurch as he quickly imagined Jasmine cornered down an alley, unable to see the dementor gliding toward her but able to feel the fear, anguish, misery and hopelessness radiating from it like waves of heat. He would eventually have to teach her about Dark magic and how to defend herself against it, especially as a Muggle. Pushing past this, Severus took a steadying breath and raised his wand, figuring if she could not see it, there was no harm either way in whatever happened next.

" _Expecto Patronum…"_ he whispered softly, caressingly to the wand, his heart hammering a painful pace on the inside of his ribcage.

What if it did not work for him anymore?

He was not surprised at first that his wand did not react properly to the spell; he was far too concerned that it would not work to focus on a happy enough memory. Unsurprisingly yet again, the search for one such memory did not take him nearly as long as it used to. A stupid smile met his face with such force that he actually let out a quiet grunt of a laugh. He was fondly remembering only an hour ago or so when Jasmine yelled 'WHAT THE FUCK' after he had appeared quite unexpectedly at her side with a crack like that of thunder.

Again, he whispered, " _Expecto Patronum,"_ and at once, a silvery streak of electric blue and white light emerged from the tip of his wand, soaring out over the water.

But there was no graceful head, no overly large, flicking ears, no peaceful, comforting eyes to stare back at his and silently reassure him that everything would be alright. Instead, the Patronus floated on the air in front of them, glimmering beautifully beneath the streaks of colored light overhead, but no more formed than a large, hazy cloud. Beside him, Jasmine had shivered as the spell left his wand and was now looking around at the ground on either side of her legs, rubbing her arms to ease the chill bumps.

"What was that?" she asked, looking over at Severus when he smirked appreciatively at her reaction. Of course she would pick up on something that emanated happiness. "It felt warm and…nice, or like how it feels after a really good hug."

Severus nodded his head in the direction of the swirling mass of powerful magic, at which he stared, forcing himself to be excited over the possibility of the development of a new corporeal Patronus but…what exactly did that mean? It certainly could not mean that his magic was suddenly substandard, and he was simply unable to perform the spell properly anymore. No, the haze and the spell were strong, very much the way his Patronus had looked prior to the formation of the doe. Unless he was mistaken, this regression from the doe could mean that he was well and truly healing, perhaps even more so than he had initially realized. Without even the slightest provocation, a blurry, out of focus mental picture of Nymphadora Tonks swam in his mind's eye. For a moment, he had no idea why and even frowned slightly at the ocean in his attempt to remember why this person would have been called back from the deepest recesses of his memory vaults. But then he remembered.

Jasmine's soft, sweet voice spoke from beside him, cautiously it would seem, as she could very likely see the scowl on his face as he glared off into space.

"Severus?"

At last, he turned his head to look at her and his insides lurched.

Nymphadora had been in love with Lupin. Her usual, fully formed Patronus had taken on a large but hazy, weak form during that time. This could _not possibly_ be the same situation. There was absolutely no way, not with him. He may have found Jasmine gorgeous beyond compare, endlessly amusing, sweet and kind and strange in the right ways, but he certainly did not feel as though he was nearing… _love_ with her any time soon. No, it simply had to be due to the fact that he was so much less focused on Lily than he had been for so long. In fact, up until very recently, as in the past two or three days, Severus could not remember the last time he had even spared that history a thought. This had to be why. His Patronus was trying to figure out who he had been all along, beneath the years of shame, guilt, depression and despair.

Clearing his throat, he motioned to the air before them, finally speaking to break the weird silence during which he had been thinking so intently. "You can't see it with your eyes, but I conjured something known as a Patronus," he explained in a measured, patient voice, speaking very clearly so she could understand. She hung on his every word, listening as though her life depended on it, but Severus could not look at her just yet. He could feel a nauseating, blushing heat beginning to crawl up his neck for reasons beyond him and gave private thanks that it was still very dark in California.

"Patronuses are magical embodiments of happiness, hope, positive energy," he continued. "They typically take on the form of animals and can be conjured for use as defenses against certain Dark magic and creatures. Muggles can't see them though, I'm afraid." He shrugged in a sympathetic sort of way as a conclusion.

Jasmine's head quirked to one side in confusion. "Muggles?" she asked, grinning sheepishly when Severus grunted a laugh.

"Yes, Muggles. Non-magic people, like you."

"Oh," She glanced down at her hands in her lap. "Is that a bad thing?"

If only she had asked him that about twenty years previously.

He gave absolutely no hesitation before he answered, "No, not at all. It only means you can't do magic."

And he meant that.

Earlier in their friendship, Severus had wondered regularly whether or not he would be able to be closer than work associates with a Muggle. He enjoyed using magic and experimenting with it far too much to have someone around all the time from whom he would have to hide everything, constantly. It sounded more stressful than it was worth at the time, but he had been unable to decline. Jasmine had been insistent on getting to know him, on including him in her life, on asking him for help and guidance with her schoolwork. Now, they were thick as thieves and it mattered not in the slightest that she was Muggle. Clearly. She was sitting next to him on the other side of the country, talking openly about, well, everything.

"So, I have to ask," Jasmine began again, her tone a bit sheepish. Severus glanced over at her again, raising his eyebrows in anticipation of her question. "You really are British, and you really are a doctor, right? You're not some Russian spy and you haven't just been faking your way along by doing magic…right?"

Relief at the simplicity of her question made Severus chuckle under his breath as he nodded. "Yes, I really am from Britain, and yes, my license is real. I did go to medical school," he answered and Jasmine grinned, heaving a relieved sigh of her own.

"Oh, okay, good-"

"But only for two years."

Another pointed beat of silence passed while Jasmine quickly turned her head to look at him, leaning forward on the heels of her hands on either side of her legs. " _What?"_

At this, Severus felt the beginning dregs of guilt stirring deep in the bottommost pit of his stomach. There was no such thing as a simple question anymore. Every step of his new, fabricated life had to be explained and every explanation led deeper into his past. Where was he supposed to draw the line? He figured he might as well explain as much as he could. He took a deep breath, glancing down at his wand resting delicately between his interlocked hands.

"I told you I taught chemistry," he began, glancing at her sideways beneath one cocked eyebrow. Jasmine nodded, turning slightly on the rocky ledge to face him more properly; he wished she wouldn't. He already felt like he was on stage.

"That was not true. I taught Potions at an ancient school for witchcraft called Hogwarts. My students were ages eleven to seventeen. When I was thirty-two or so, I began studying medicine in an effort to prepare myself to leave. I knew I would not be able to escape that life easily so I made a point to learn something thoroughly enough that I'd never have to look back. So that I could leave quickly and discreetly without detection." He hesitated, choosing his remaining words carefully. "I knew that by the time I needed to get out, there would be a lot of people eager to see me dead or imprisoned."

Severus knew there was no way he could making much sense to Jasmine, but she stared at him raptly all the same, listening to his every word, hanging on them, her eyes wide and shimmery in the reflected moonlight off the ocean before them.

"How did you…get away?" she asked in a sickeningly reverent tone that Severus did not feel he deserved.

A pang of trepidation tugged at his guts and he twisted his hands together between his knees as he leaned forward slightly, glaring out at the Pacific. "I died," he explained simply, finally glancing over at her. A wave crashed far below them as Jasmine stared back at him, her face nearly blank were it not for the confusion lying among her features. "I had studied medicine and memorized anatomy so thoroughly that I was able to create a double for myself. So that inevitably, when I was attacked, I could replace myself with the fake body and flee." At this, there really was no escaping further explanation. It was bound to come up soon anyway and Jasmine had always been so kind not to ask him about them or stare. He tilted his head to the side slightly and tapped the larger of the two scars.

One moment of silence passed wherein Jasmine looked shocked to her core that he had offered up such information so casually. She licked her lips slowly, looking down at her hands in her lap, clearly unsure what to say and unwilling to look at him for the moment.

"So…" she began, glancing out over the water as he sent another stream of light out to replace the fading others, blue this time. "You faked your own death."

"Correct," he answered, smirking. "Which is why this-" He paused to motion at the lights, his wand, the area around them. "-all of this, has to remain completely secret. That is why I needed to talk to you, to make you understand. Otherwise, I would have had to leave. We would-" His voice stopped abruptly and he looked out over the water, sending yet another stream of light; magenta.

"-never see each other again," she finished for him. He nodded a confirmation but did not turn his head. "But…why? I don't understand why you had to leave. What did you do that was so bad? You were a teacher!"

Ah. They had reached it.

But he couldn't. Not yet.

"That," he began, but paused to take a deep breath. "-will have to be a story for another night."

The effect of him saying no was immediate. She looked crestfallen at his denial of the question, but as usual, she was beaming a second later, her disappointment lingering only in her expressive eyes. Severus was grateful, but another blossom of guilt sprang to being.

"Well, whatever the reason, I'm glad you're here now," she said sweetly after a moment of surveying him with that peaceful, content grin on her face, and she reached out, resting one delicate hand on his arm.

Just as it always did when she touched him unexpectedly like this, a wave of her energy passed through her hand, transferring a weird little sample of bubbly, giggly happiness into him. Whether this was actually how the mechanism worked, Severus was not sure. He may have been particularly sensitive to it since it was so vastly different to his own energy. Either way, he always welcomed it and had to suppress a shudder every time. It sent little tingles of delight up his spine. This time, however, the tingles were considerably stronger than usual as he failed to suppress an outward shiver that wracked his entire body and leaned away from her on instinct.

"Sorry!" she squealed, yanking her hand away quickly. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to-"

"No, no, it's not that," he said with a deep laugh, shaking his head _._ "No, it's just that er-…sometimes, I can pick up on other people's…energy? I've never really been sure if that is what I'm feeling. And it isn't consistent enough for me to study it properly."

"Oh," Jasmine began, looking with genuine concern at the hand she had touched him with. "Was it bad?"

Severus finally relented to the annoying twinge in his spine from sitting on the rocky cliff and he lay down on his back, long legs still dangling from the edge. He laughed again, reaching up to press the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. He was getting tired, but he wanted to stay there forever, stay awake forever, tell and show Jasmine everything until neither of them could keep their eyes open anymore. But it was nearing three in the morning, California time, which meant Boston was rapidly approaching sunrise at six.

"Not at all," he answered. "It's really lovely when I do feel it."

She was silent but Severus did not need to look over to know that she was smiling; he could practically hear it. But as though she had been listening in on his thoughts of sleep, her mouth suddenly dropped open in a wide yawn, which she covered with the back of her hand and flopped down abruptly onto her side next to him, arms distance between them.

After a few moments of silence, Severus broke it, glaring at the heavens stretched overhead like a length of black velvet with tiny holes punched in. "I'm glad I'm here now too," he stated defiantly. "It took a few years for me to reach that point but-" _You also had quite a bit to do with it…_ He took another deep breath, holding it back; there was yet one more conversation they could not have just yet. "Yes, glad indeed," he eventually sighed in conclusion. His right arm raised his wand to shoot four more colors into the sky, in a dazzling 'homemade' rendition of the Northern Lights.

Beside him, Jasmine was silent but rolled onto her back to watch the lights in the sky dance and swirl slowly, forming beautiful shades between them. It was very soothing and from the misty, far-away tone in her voice when she spoke, Severus could tell she was getting sleepy. Perhaps she was just as reluctant to go home as he was.

"Tell me more," she sighed peacefully.

Severus grinned and opened his mouth to do so but was struck with a thought that caused him to hesitate. Damn. They _had_ to leave.

He sat up slowly, glancing at his watch again. "I would love to, and I promise I will, but we really should get back to Boston. It will be sunrise soon there and it's too risky to Apparate downtown in daylight."

If Jasmine had any objection to leaving, she did not show it but instead sat up and moved away from the ledge wisely before attempting to stand. As she rose to her feet and brushed off the back of her jeans, however, she smiled awkwardly up at him with one squinted eye. "Is there any other way to travel besides Ap- Apparating?" she asked lightly, as if to avoid hurting his feelings. "Maybe it's just me but it's not super comfortable."

Severus smiled understandingly, extending his hand to her. "It isn't you," he offered kindly. "It isn't a comfortable sensation for anyone, but one does get used to it."

Jasmine nodded and took his hand, sparing one last quick glance around the grassy moor and cliff edge, at the distant mountains and woods around them. She sighed heavily, smiling to herself before looking up at him as he watched her. He returned the smile, very much enjoying the extra moment he was getting with her small hand in his large one.

"You'll bring me back here, right?" she asked, turning her head to look straight up at him, her eyes alight with excitement and hopefulness but heavily lidded in her sleepiness.

The desire to kiss her had never been so strong.

He fought it back with difficulty, opting instead to squeeze her hand gently in two quick pulses. "Of course I will," he replied. "I can take you anywhere I've been before." Jasmine's eyes lit up as so many possibilities sprang to her mind and he shook his head with a soft laugh. There was a very good chance he would be doing some long-distance traveling in the near future. "But for now, home."

With a sharp turn on the spot, they Disapparated and reappeared in Boston, behind the coffee shop, hand in hand, exactly the way they had left only a few hours previously. True to his word, the sun was indeed about to rise, and the parking lot was beginning to fill up, but no one appeared to be outside and Severus had already checked to make sure there were no cameras on the outside of the building.

Jasmine appeared to have been ready for their 'landing' as she did not stumble nor faint this time, but merely shook her head like a dog shaking water from its ears. Her jaw opened and shut widely a few times and she separated their hands only to reach up and plug her ears as if trying to pop her eardrums.

"All right?" he asked, watching her with a smirk as she grinned embarrassedly.

"Yeah," she said, lowering her hands.

Their cars were right where they had left them, so they walked across the parking lot, where Jasmine stopped at her trunk and turned to look up at him. Her cheeks were glowing pink, newly visible to him in the rapidly brightening daylight as she choked on what she was clearly struggling to say.

"I know that…you can't tell me everything right away, but I just want you to know that I'm here and ready to listen whenever you're ready to talk about it." She said this all in one breath but continued before Severus could speak, though he did take a deep breath and drop his eyes to the pavement beneath his shoes, guilt eating him alive. How could she let him keep yet more information from her? Why was she allowing him to be so vague? Jasmine went on. "I can't thank you enough for trusting me with all of this. I was so afraid that you were-"

"Crazy?" he supplied, finally looking up to smirk halfheartedly at her.

She nodded, a sleepy smile giving her normally sweet features a soft, angelic look. The gold-tinted morning sun sang through her wild blonde curls and shone like infinitesimal diamonds. "Yeah, something like that."

"Well, I couldn't let you go on thinking I was some religious nutter," he replied simply, pushing his hands into his pockets.

"No, not crazy. Just a wizard." She added the last bit in a lowered voice, but giggled immediately thereafter, turning to get into her car. "Go home and get some sleep. We're off tomorrow, right?"

"Yes," Severus confirmed. "Thankfully."

She smiled, hesitating with her hand on the open door of her car before she got in. For a moment, he was not sure what she was about to do or say, but after only a second or two's wait, she continued into the car and Severus released a breath he did not realize he had been holding.

"Bye, Sev."

"Bye."

Without waiting to watch her leave, without another thought, Severus continued to his car, holding up one hand in a wave as Jasmine's car pulled out of her spot and passed him. His stomach was not only perfectly empty and consequently angry at him for it, but churning and uneasy with the magnitude of how much he had left unsaid. And Jasmine had just… _left_ , allowing him to keep his silence, hold his dark and winding past until whenever he pleased or felt fit to talk to her about it. Honestly, he was not sure he would ever be 'ready' to talk to Jasmine about it. It was something that he would much rather let out bit by bit, hint by hint over the span of, say, forever.

After starting his car and setting the air conditioning to run on cool, Severus sat there for several long seconds, dark gaze trained on his phone sitting in the cup holders between the driver and passenger seats. He should do it. He had already risked losing their entire friendship, including their work relationship, _including_ his post itself and perhaps his medical license too, just for fun. No, he could not allow himself to take advantage of Jasmine's tenderness and kindness by taking as much time as he wanted in telling her those things about himself that she needed to know. Of course, it was not a life or death situation for her to know his past, but it was something Severus felt he ought to have addressed out there in the field in California. She had asked him outright what he had done that was so wrong and he had flat-out declined to answer and Jasmine had let him. There was nothing wrong with this per se, but quite honestly, if he was waiting to talk about it until he was ready, er-… _When might THAT be?_ He was the King of Secrets. He would take it with him to his _actual_ grave before he was ready to talk about it.

So, without another thought, he reached out for his phone, woke the screen up and selected Jasmine's number from his recent call list.

It began ringing so he put the phone's speaker on, set it in his lap then began to back out of the parking space, his left, non-driving knee bouncing a few times with anxiety. It rang three times before there was a rustling on the other end, then a soft, sweet voice-

"Hey!"

God _damnit_ , he liked that about her. They had parted ways quite literally two minutes ago and yet she still answered the phone with a greeting as though she had not seen nor heard from him in months. He sighed, not bothering to stifle it.

"Hey, er-, so," he spoke to the emptiness of his car, squinting in the new, early morning rays of sunlight as he turned out onto the main road toward his apartment. "I need to tell you everything, Jasmine, all of it, if you're willing to listen." He continued without giving her space to interject just yet. He needed to explain everything before she gave her word. His hair tie finally gave up the ghost and flung across the inside of his car when he turned his head to check traffic before moving. Heavy black hair tumbled down onto his shoulders, but he ignored it, too tired to bother putting it back up. "I'm afraid that if I don't tell you everything right up front, I won't ever do it and I'm not interested in keeping things from you anymore."

There was an excruciatingly long moment of silence on the other end of the call; Severus' empty stomach churned unpleasantly. He wondered hopefully if his blood sugar was getting low enough for him to faint, to get him out of this.

"I told you I'm here to listen, Severus," Jasmine finally spoke in a very even tone to the inside of his car, her voice soft with weariness but awake and listening attentively. He could hear it.

Stopped at a red light, he briefly folded his arms tight across his sternum, squeezing slightly as he learned forward and shut his eyes. Ugh, he felt sick. Was it too late to back out and say, 'never mind, just kidding'?

No, he couldn't. He had made a huge decision in calling her, had disturbed her from a peaceful ride home and he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that once he started talking to her, he would begin to feel better. He just had to remind himself that this was Jasmine, he trusted her, and she trusted him. All he had to do was talk and hope she understood how difficult it was for him to admit to ninety-percent of the things he had done in his past.

With a deep breath, he sat up straight in the driver's seat as the light turned green, and as his car began to move, he began to speak. His throat was suddenly dry and his heart was racing. Perhaps he was dying.

Fingers crossed, eh?

"When I was a child, around nine or ten, I met a girl of the same age who lived in the next village over from where I grew up-" He took a deep breath to quell his sudden urge to dry heave. He had never in his life told ANYONE anything even remotely this intimate, though he had to admit, he'd had the right idea in phoning her versus attempting this face to face. There was no way he could have done it. But he kept talking, forcing himself on, pausing to take breaths and elaborate on different points. True to her word, Jasmine listened intently while she drove; Severus could hear the faint roar of morning traffic mirrored in the background of her end of the call.

Any noise, any distraction, however, he ignored with ease, forcing what little energy he had left into staying focused and more importantly, making sense. During the more intense portions of his 'tale', as it were, Jasmine did not gasp nor groan, nor make any audible indication that she was still there. In fact, she very well could have hung up the phone and Severus would have been none the wiser; he could have been talking to dead air the entire time. But every now and again, he would hear something in the background of her phone, somewhere wherever she was, at her apartment most likely. So he continued, feeling, as he had predicted, ever so slightly better with each bit he got through.

At long last, he was pulling his car into the garage of his apartment building, exhausted and longing for his bed. Before he turned off his car and got out, he concluded at least one portion of the story.

"She and James were murdered, despite my effort to prevent it and I-…" He paused, his eyes glaring unfocused at the concrete wall ahead of his car. A lengthy stretch of silence lapsed before he finally forced himself to blink, thankful beyond anything for the technology of the cellular phone as two hot stinging drops escaped his lower eyelids and fell with such speed that they completely bypassed his skin and splashed heavily onto his gray shirt. He shook his head, clearing his throat as he leaned back to tuck his wand into the waist of his boxers and pull his shirt down over it. "In turn, I became a spy against the Dark Lord and delivered information to Dumbledore, acting as something of a double agent, I suppose one could say. I also…agreed to look out for her son, make sure he came to no harm. Which I assure you was no mean task. He ended up being an idiot."

The quiet snort of a laugh that escaped Jasmine into the phone was the only noise she had made thus far, but it worked instantly to soothe Severus' nerves as they had begun to ramp up again. He smirked into the phone and finally moved to get out of his car, crossing the busy parking garage toward the stairs. He continued to speak as he climbed, thankful that he had gotten so well accustomed to stairs in his life that he did not grow winded as he spoke.

Finally, after passing his hand over the wards erected across his door, he stepped over the threshold and shut the door behind him, tossing his keys toward the cluttered glass kitchen table without looking. He vaguely registered the crash and jingle of them skidding across the table to land noisily on the wood floor on the opposite side.

After rather skillfully changing from his normal clothes into a pair of long cotton pants and a clean t-shirt with the phone between his ear and shoulder, he threw himself down onto his bed on his back, hair strewn five thousand different directions.

"-Dumbledore and I had arranged it from the beginning," he continued, feeling steadily more and more guilty that this was taking so long; Jasmine had looked so tired. But he could not stop now. He was just reaching the one major point he had wanted to tell her in his effort not to keep things from her. If she could not accept this darkest bit of him, they could never continue this- friendship or otherwise, however foolishly hopeful the idea was.

"He had received a fatal curse and had only a year or so's time to live-"

 _Knock, knock, knock_

Severus picked his head up from the mess of fluffy comforters atop his mattress to glare simultaneously at his phone and at the doorway. Pressing it to his ear again, he listened for a second or two before asking, "Did someone just knock on the door on your end?".

Jasmine was quiet. Again came the _knock, knock, knock._

Severus' heart positively froze. Mid-beat.

He had heard the noise at the same time, both in person, _and_ through his phone.

Jasmine was there, knocking on his door.

In a movement that only adrenaline could have allowed, Severus was on his feet in an instant, scowling at the inside of his front door. How could she have possibly figured out where he lived? Unless… _Sinclair…_

With a frustrated growl, he pressed his thumb to the end call button and dropped his phone onto the glass table as he passed it once again in favor of the door. All along, he thought he had been so clever in calling her. How woefully he had underestimated his clearly tenacious little friend.

With a harder yank than he had intended, he swung open the door, the wind of it blowing a bit of his hair into his face, alerting him to the fact that it was down. His eyes darted to his wrist where the black elastic band usually lived when not in his hair, only to remember in a rush of regret that it had flung across his car during the drive home. He sighed, his eyes sliding shut in defeat as he leaned against the edge of the open door.

Jasmine stood directly on the other side, her eyes softening from the intensity they had borne when he had first appeared, likely from noticing the mild irritation on his face. She did not look upset, thankfully, but instead concerned, perhaps confused. But he saw nothing there that resembled pity.

"How did you find this place?" he asked in a simple tone, watching her as she glanced at her shoes before meeting his eyes again, grinning guiltily.

"I followed you from the coffee shop," she explained with what was unmistakably an expression of pride and accomplishment on her face. "If you were really a spy, you kinda sucked at it."

At last, Severus' stony features relaxed and he snorted a quiet laugh through his nose, taking one step back to grant her entrance into his apartment. "Well played, Taylor," he grumbled, rolling his eyes behind her back as she stepped over his threshold smartly. The door shut behind her with a quiet click and quite suddenly, they were alone, together, inside his place. He was very glad indeed that he had at least maintained the presence of mind to apply a shirt with his comfortable cotton pants.

As he stepped into his kitchen, partially in search of a glass of water for both Jasmine and himself, partially for just one moment to stave off the rest of the conversation they must now have in person, he left her to her own devices in the living room. He was fairly confident she would go directly to his bookshelves. Therefore, he was unsurprised to find her standing before them when he returned, browsing the titles along the many rows of spines with her head tilted to one side. He approached, extending one of the two glasses to her when she noticed the motionless top-like device on the middle shelf. It was dusty with lack of use. She pointed it at it, glancing up at him to take the water from his hand.

"Thank you. What is that?" she asked, taking a sip from the cold glass.

Severus moved past her to the French doors which led out onto his balcony, where he just so happened to keep a small tin of cigarettes and a glass ashtray, and stepped outside, leaving the door open to indicate that she could follow him if she would like to.

"It's called a Sneakoscope," he said, suppressing a groan of middle age as he dropped heavily into the cushioned chair next to the table. "It spins and whistles loudly if someone or something deceitful or untrustworthy is near. It's very useful for enemies and people I'd like to avoid."

Jasmine emerged from his living room onto the porch and for a moment, Severus had to stare at her as she walked over to the edge of the balcony to look over. The first portion of the night had been unbelievable in itself but now? She was standing there in his very private, personal living area, having followed him home. What a strange and exhilarating night indeed.

The strangeness was made even more profound when Jasmine turned to look at him abruptly, setting her glass down on the table opposite him. She sat down across from him and looked over intently.

"You stopped," she began. "Your friend Dumbledore was cursed and only had a year?"

Hearing the name of one of the most powerful wizards in history simply tumble off of her lips was bizarre and surreal on a level with which Severus was unfamiliar. He could not suppress a grunt of a laugh as he placed a cigarette between his lips and lit it by cupping his hand briefly around the end. Jasmine watched him do this with a pained grin on her face, clearly torn between exasperation at his smoking and delight at watching him use yet more magic.

He exhaled a thin steam of smoke before rubbing his thumb across his forehead a few times.

"Yes, so, after I had contained as much of the curse as I could, he asked me, ever so generously, to please kill him when the time was right, to spare my godson the trauma of splitting his soul in the act. I agreed to do it, but reluctantly so." He paused, thinking back on that disastrous year. "I don't think a day passed between that night and his death that I didn't regret my decision and try to get out of it. But Dumbledore held me to my word. I killed him." He took another long drag from his smoke before tapping a bit of ash into the glass tray. "Then my place as the Dark Lord's right hand was secured. I fled that night but soon returned to the school as Headmaster in Dumbledore's place."

Nausea from his empty stomach and the gravity of his words swelled up inside him again; the cigarette certainly could not be helping. But he fought it back and took another deep pull. Jasmine was silent, watching him closely, listening to his every word, her expression maddeningly unreadable.

"I was not aware of it at the time, but Lord Voldemort had been seeking three powerfully magical objects known as the Deathly Hallows, one of which happened to be Dumbledore's wand. It was cursed to pass from hand to hand by blood, meaning-"

"-whoever killed the last owner became the new owner of the wand," Jasmine interrupted, now watching him with her eyes alight with suspense, as though he were reading a particularly good thriller novel to her.

Surprised but untiringly pleased with how intelligent she was, Severus nodded, exhaling another thin stream of smoke. "Precisely, and since I had killed Dumbledore…" He cut himself short but motioned again to his neck as he had done earlier in California. "Lord Voldemort ordered his snake to kill me in an attempt to win the allegiance of the wand." He shrugged. "Whether or not it worked, I never knew. The beast was on me, biting me, then I…died."

"Sort of," Jasmine supplied, smirking at him.

Severus returned it. "Sort of."

Another few beats of silence passed before she spoke again. "And then?" she pressed, seemingly hopeful that there would be more to his story, but he shrugged.

"Then, I came here, enrolled at Boston University Medical School, two years later obtained a license and my M.D., got a position in the ER at the hospital and now-"

"-here you are," she finished for him, smiling.

He nodded slowly, pushing the end of his finished cigarette into the tray to put it out. "Here I am."

Across from him, Jasmine leaned forward slightly, lowering her gaze to focus on a spot on the table between them. It was a long time before she spoke and she shook her head when she finally did so.

"Severus, I know you're like me in that you don't want or need any sympathy or pity from anyone," she began quietly, finally pulling her eyes back up to meet his. He stared at her in return, waiting for her to continue. She was right, but he wanted to hear her point. "So, I won't tell you how sorry I am that life treated you that way. I won't hug you and tell you how I glad I am that you're still here, doing so much to make up for your past," Her voice grew momentarily and horrifyingly thick with emotion but just as Severus looked away, feeling embarrassment boiling in his stomach, it cleared and she went on, her tone strong. "And I _definitely_ won't tell you how proud I am of you or how proud I am to be your friend."

Yet another ringing silence followed her words, wherein Severus decided that he had absolutely no idea what to say. She had very sneakily used her reply to compliment him and it had not gone unnoticed. His chest had grown warm with a fresh bout of blushing, which he played off by rolling his eyes and groaning, "Oh, _gross."_

Jasmine smiled, giggling quietly before she rose to her feet. Severus followed her, torn between wishing she would not leave and wanting nothing more than to go sleep in his bed for the rest of the day. If only the two things could have been combined.

He followed her to the door, hating how surprisingly easy it had been to tell her of his haunted past, yet the thought of admitting how he felt toward her made him want to sink into the floor and never be looked at ever again. The rejection would flatten him.

As Jasmine opened the door to step through it into the windswept hallway, Severus remained in the doorway, scowling out of habit as she turned to look up at him. He stalled. His brain had well and truly met its limit and he had no idea what to say to her. And from the way she was hesitating, it seemed she may have been experiencing the same loss for words. So much had transpired since they left the hospital, it felt as though years had passed, not hours.

At long last, Jasmine sighed, smiling warmly but sleepily. "Alright, well…sleep well. Maybe we can get together tomorrow if you're not busy."

Severus grunted a laugh, rolling his eyes. "Yes, you know me well. The social butterfly, always so busy."

She gave another appreciative giggle at his sarcasm before waving one hand and walking away down the hall toward the elevators and stairs. He watched her go briefly but turned to go back inside, his jaw dropping in a face-splitting yawn, one of the really good ones that raises goosebumps along the skin and reaches all the way down to the toes. The door was just closing behind him when a tremendous bang made him start and turn back, only to grunt deeply as a blonde freight train burst into his apartment and hurled herself into his arms.

Severus staggered backward a step or two with the force of her hug but returned it after unfreezing himself from the shock of her reappearance. It had not been immediately apparent to him how incomplete her visit had felt, how badly he had secretly wanted to throw his arms around her and stay that way. Abandoning all pretense, he turned his face to bury it in her mass of soft curls, his arms snaking around her waist securely. Jasmine, for her lack of height, made up for it in warmth and tenderness as she embraced him, rubbing both of her hands gently but firmly across his shoulders, smoothing his shirt against his skin.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered into his hair. Horrified, he felt his throat tighten and his eyes burn, forcing him to tighten the grip his arms had taken around the small of her back. _Why_ did she have this sort of effect on him? "Severus, I'm so, so sorry. I can't imagine watching so many people-…Your students, your _friends."_

He said nothing but did not let go. A silent sob heaved his shoulders one time and Jasmine's hold on him tightened as she sniffled quietly against his hair.

Neither Severus nor Jasmine were entirely sure how long they had been standing there. It could have been five minutes, it could have been a week. Either way, when he finally came to his senses and stood up straight, he turned from her quickly, using the heel of one hand to brush moisture from his black eyelashes. Jasmine looked away kindly, wiping the same from her own eyes.

"Thank you for telling me so much of this," she said softly. "I didn't expect it but…I'm so glad you did."

Severus grunted a laugh, rolling his eyes as he ran a hand up into his loose hair to push it away from his face. He was so glad Jasmine had opted not to comment on it.

"Yeh, it was my pleasure," he grumbled sarcastically, his voice rather gruff with residual emotion. He stepped toward the door as Jasmine turned to leave.

She gave him one last sweet, watery smile before she turned to walk away again, this time much more slowly, her pace even and content. However, this time, Severus did not stay to watch but instead hastily shut the door and locked it behind her.

There was no telling what would happen the next time she decided to follow him home and come bursting in unexpectedly to hug him.

What a creep.

…

A/N: I can't wait to hear your thoughts! Remember to follow me on IG (qom389) and/or join the facebook group called To Heal Himself for updates on the story, announcements, pictures and sneak peeks at the upcoming chapters! I will not be posting any more author's notes as a whole chapter because I HATE THAT SO MUCH. So I had to get with the social media thang. Follow/add me if you're with it!

One more note before I retreat to the instragramz and Facebook world- I am looking to commission a graphic artist/artist to draw or sketch/whatever a few pictures of Sev and Jasmine for me? I have a few ideas on some scenes from the story that could make such a cute illustration that I would cherish for ETERNITY. Hit me up on one of those two platforms (IG/Facebook) OR just send me a DM on this site if you want to connect about this. Thank you!

-QoM


	20. Fortunate Son

Wow! ANOTHER CHAPTER! And it just so happens to line up perfectly with the actual 4th of July! That's today! I've had this idea since I had the original idea for the entire story and it was sooooo nice to finally be able to write this one, thus why I flew through it in like three days.

This chapter is dedicated to you all! This story got stalled a lot due to finishing college and working so much, so I wanted to make at least one chapter full of fluff and sexy stuff. It has been long overdue and it is certainly NOT the last time we will see fluff OR sexy stuff! I'm so glad to see this story progressing so quickly! So Warning ahead but this story IS RATED MATURE. If you're not ready for this chapter, you CERTAINLY won't be ready for what's ahead, believe that.

I also have one more announcement to make. This story will have an official ending but it will not be the end of the story…Make sense? Haha What I mean is, I will have an ending for the official 'ending' of the story, but I will continue to update this with fun little one-shots and more chapters, likely stretching into the 50-80 chapter range. I just love this story and where it's going. I'll write it either way but I'll keep posting them here too if there is a demand for it! Haha So please sit back and enjoy! Happy 4th of July to my Americanos in the reading section!

….

Severus exhaled quietly, sliding down further into her couch as Jasmine joined him on the other end, having just started a movie, the title of which she had kept a secret from him, only saying 'you'll see!' whenever he had tried to guess. Only a few moments later, a black and white picture popped up, familiar music began to play, and the screen displayed the words 'A Hard Day's Night'. He smirked, glancing over at her, only to find that she too had turned her head and was now beaming at him excitedly.

"Color me unsurprised," he mumbled, leaning his head back against the couch, his arms folded comfortably across one of her soft, fluffy pillows atop his middle.

It had been another few months since their visit to the field in California, since her impromptu cameo at his apartment, since Jasmine had learned about who he really was. And if Severus had been at all afraid of her growing distant toward him or hesitant, he had worried in vain.

He and Jasmine had become nearly inseparable.

Summer had progressed from April in a hazy, lazy sort of way, rolling through Boston as a heat wave, which had Jasmine _swearing_ she would shave her head, resorting to wearing her mass of blonde curls high on her head in a messy bun. Though Severus had no idea what she was complaining about; she was from California…He was from BRITAIN. England may have gotten warm without air con during the summers but nothing he had experienced thus far compared with that first New England heat wave his first summer there. He might well have been positively melting had it not been for the fact that he had gone on to endure five more of those summers and had learned some really excellent cooling spells to apply to his clothes. The first time he shared this with Jasmine, she nearly cried in gratitude.

Their time together had become a majority, meeting up to do even the simplest things together such as escorting a _very_ cross Dr. Prince to the DMV after he had received a ticket for an expired vehicle registration and Jasmine had forbidden him to Confund the officer to get out of it. Or grocery shopping, like the time Severus agreed to accompany her to the store, only to gradually and discreetly Vanish small items from her cart when she was not looking. He had acted just as confused as she was the entire time, until she finally caught on and landed a fairly decent smack on his arm while he laughed.

So fulfilling was this friendship of theirs that Severus had not spared much thought to anything further with her lately. He found that he was content with things the way they were, growing more and more comfortable with her every day, joking and laughing, arguing sarcastically in public to make people stare, acting like utter fools around each other. For a while, he tried to convince himself that this friendship with her was most certainly _not_ better _nor_ more fun than his friendship had been with Lily. (It was) But it was not a competition, the two women were not alike, for which he was grateful. Jasmine was quieter vocally than Lily had been, but less restrained otherwise. Lily had never really made a fool of herself. Jasmine was utter ridiculousness. Lily had been graceful and elegant, somewhat like a practiced ballerina. Jasmine had a tendency to bounce into corners and walls for lack of watching where she was going. It may not have been a contest in his mind, but he had to admit, Jasmine was just more…fun than Lily had been. He sure as hell laughed a lot more often now. For a while, he had wondered if he would even remember how.

She frequently liked to _wander_ as well. It seemed every time they were out in a public place, doing anything, no matter the venue, at least once or twice, Severus would look up to find that Jasmine had wandered off or was in the process of doing so and he would have to either whistle shrilly or physically walk over to retrieve her. She was not air-headed by any means, but rather constantly interested in things with a curious streak like that of a bold cat.

For this reason, he felt Jasmine was plenty entertaining and enjoyable as his friend, which gave him no inclination to push things. Sure, he may have been visited by the desire to kiss her at least once per day, had experienced one or two colorful dreams involving her by then, both of which had required an icy shower immediately afterward. But these were normal occurrences for two adult, heterosexual friends of opposite genders…He found her attractive and cared for her deeply as his close friend, so it was only natural that those thoughts occurred…Right?

…

At the other end of the couch, Jasmine watched him from the corner of her eye, waiting for the right moment to ask. She had mentioned it briefly a week ago, in a joking manner to gauge his reaction, but they had been at work at the time and it was difficult to talk to him about outside things there. He really was very different in and out of work, as she had attempted to explain to Rebecca, who still was absolutely flabbergasted that they were this close without anything further even being discussed between them. But Jasmine assured her it was genuine; they really were just fantastic friends who enjoyed doing things together and goofing around. At the time of the conversation, Rebecca had scowled at Dr. Prince across triage for several moments before rolling her eyes with an incredulous scoff. She did not believe it, and that was alright. Jasmine knew and that was what mattered most.

"So, Oakes' party is tomorrow," she commented as off-handedly as she could, during a quieter part of the old movie.

Severus did not look away from the TV, but she could tell he was listening.

"Oakes' party for what?" he asked after a few moments and Jasmine rolled her eyes.

"His Fourth of July party, Sev. I told you about it," she replied, watching as he squinted in a feigned attempt to recollect the conversation.

"Hm," he hummed a few seconds later. "I don't remember…"

Jasmine huffed, turning to face him with her back against the armrest. "Mm-hmm…Well, do you want to go?"

"Ugh, pass," he grumbled, sinking even further into her couch.

She let out a noise of disdain, dropping her head onto the armrest. "Oh, come on, it won't be that bad," she argued, watching his profile as his eyebrow arched but he did not look over.

"I don't know why you're fussed," he said, shaking his head as he scowled at the TV. "You don't even like him."

"That's not true!" she squealed. "I just don't like how lazy and sloppy he is. Also, he hits on me and the other nurses sometimes."

At this, Severus did finally look over, eyebrows still arched sharply with a suspicious sort of expression on his handsome face.

"Relax, Doc," she laughed. "I always put him in his place. Don't worry."

His expression of mistrust and severe reconsideration on his choice of shift-mate remained in place, but he did not speak until he had turned back to the television. A moment later, he held up one hand with two fingers extended in a fake gun sort of manner. "Fired," he said quietly, two small sparks leaving the tips of his fingers to explode in a harmless puff of smoke against the screen of her television, on which a young Paul McCartney's face was smiling.

Jasmine giggled. "Please come with me?" she asked again after a few moments, but Severus groaned, rolling his eyes to the top of his head.

"I'm _English,_ Jas," he explained as though she had forgotten. "I think the founding of the colonies was a mistak-"

"Okay, thanks, King George," she cut across him, laughing again when he glowered at her. "Seriously, come with me, please? We'll only go for a little bit."

When he stayed silent but continued to glare at the nearly forgotten movie, Jasmine felt her hopes lift. Quiet meant he was thinking about it, weighing his options. Stupidly, she decided to speak and interrupted that moment for him to whisper a quiet 'Pleeeeease?' in his direction, which she followed with an even more stupid post script of 'Rebecca is going too'.

At this, Severus finally spoke, nodding his head resolutely. "Oh, in that case, certainly I'll go," he said at last, though Jasmine did not allow herself to get excited yet. There was something too light about his tone.

"Really…?" she asked with much trepidation. When he simply snorted a quiet laugh through his nose in response, smirking at the television, she sighed loudly and flopped dramatically back down onto the couch in defeat.

His eyes rolled to the top of his head after he glanced over at her and shook his head at her antics. "If Rebecca is going, I don't see why I need to as well. Just…" He wiggled a few fingers at her with a sneer on his face. "…go with her."

At this, Jasmine decided to drop it, though her heart sank a bit.

He still had no idea.

They had been working together for almost an entire year coming up soon and had been what she considered friends for over six of those months. And yet, he still had no clue that she had feelings for him; if he did somehow know, he ignored it with absurd ease. Then again, Jasmine was never particularly obvious about it. She flirted with him occasionally, but even to her own eyes, she would not say that it was overdone or even obvious what she was doing. So if he was not picking up on it, they were both to blame. Jasmine was just too… _shy_ or something to tell him or make a really obvious move. Every time she thought about it or considered just hauling off and kissing him right on the mouth, her mind played her an unwanted, unasked for mental video of him pushing her away with a look of disgust on his face. Or worse, slowly pull away and tell her how 'flattered' he was but that, reasons x, y, z, why they could not be together as more than friends.

So she never did.

But she felt she knew Severus well enough to think that he might like to be the one who makes the first move with a woman anyway. It went along with his other chivalrous qualities, such as opening doors for her, including car doors on their nicer outings, which Jasmine had noticed earned her somewhat jealous glances from female onlookers, who either looked grumpily at her significant other beside them, or stared interestedly at Severus.

Along with his obliviousness toward her feelings about him, he also failed to recognize how attractive he was. This was one area where Jasmine took a bit more liberty in her affections toward him. She frequently told him that he looked handsome or 'dashing' when she felt like teasing him about the British thing, and frequently, Severus liked to avoid her eyes and mumble 'shut up' in response. But she was never untruthful; he really was always, consistently attractive to her.

On this thought, she pulled her attention from the television to look over at him, where he sat opposite her, long arms crossed comfortably across one of her pillows, equally long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle before him. His hair was, as ever, in that messy knot at the back of his neck. Jasmine stared at it enviously.

Mmm…

"Severus," she said quietly, biting her lip to keep from giggling when she noticed the eyebrow visible to her twitch upward. He knew that tone.

Slowly, he looked over, his expression a bit suspicious as he squinted slightly at her. " _Yes?"_ he answered with trepidation, the baritone in his voice grazing the floor below them. When she merely grinned stupidly back at him, top teeth clamped hard on her plush bottom lip, but said nothing, he groaned, rolling his eyes after a few moments of staring.

"No, not again," he replied without need of a verbal response from her to know what she was wanting. "You left so many knots in it last time after that bloody braid."

Jasmine whined playfully, laughing heartily as she clutched her mismatched, socked feet. "Pleeease?" she begged between giggles while Severus scowled deeply at the TV. "I promise I won't braid it again. Although…" she paused to smirk teasingly at him when he turned his head to glare murderously at her. "I don't know why you had me take it out. It was _really_ cute."

Severus' reacted to her statement with only a quick bounce of his eyebrows, before he shrugged and turned back to the nearly forgotten movie. "Well, I guess I'm going to have to chop it all off," he sighed disappointedly. "Too bad. We had a good run, I suppose."

"Noooooo!" Jasmine squealed between yet more fresh laughter, before she launched herself across the couch to half-crush him and seize a hold of his knot of obsidian hair.

Severus grunted beneath her weight but nudged her off of him with a low growl, attempting with admittedly very little effort to pull his head away from her hands. "Call it 'cute' one more time…"

" _Pleeeeeease!"_ she whined again, rolling onto her back whilst draped sprawled out behind his head, half-lying awkwardly behind his neck, both arms attempting to stay wrapped around his head while he 'tried' to get away from her.

"Jas, I'm going to zap you," he warned in another growl, producing his wand, at which Jasmine let out a loud 'PSHHH' like an air drill being released.

"No, you aren't because you know I'll slap the shit out of you," she replied smartly, rolling fully onto her side along the back of the couch like a cat, one fist rested against her jaw, supporting her head. "Again."

She felt rather than saw Severus wince in recollection. It had been a complete accident, but he had playfully zapped her awake once with a simple, weak jolt of what she equated to static electricity. In her start of being awoken so suddenly, her arm had swung out and slapped him in the face and neck one time, so hard that he was forced to squint that eye for nearly a half hour afterward.

After a few moments to consider his options, Severus groaned, sliding from his comfortable spot on the couch to the carpeted floor and cushy rug before it. "Fine. Go get your brush," he finally relented and with a delighted laugh, she dashed off to her bathroom. As she went, she heard him call out, "No braids though or I'm cutting it."

Jasmine took the advantage of the moment away from him to roll her eyes. Severus would sooner amputate both of his arms _himself_ than cut his hair off. He had told her so in not so many words and she absolutely believed him. Besides, she would never want him to cut it. It was _sexy_ and in the rare instances she had seen him wearing it down, she had been unable to stop herself from staring rather lustfully at him, imagining what he would do if she were to seize two handfuls, pull his head back and…

 _Wooo….Girl, stop it._

And sure enough, true to form, when she returned to the living room to find that Severus had let his hair down from the elastic band, her breath hitched in her chest. Her feet did not stop but for one quick instant, she pictured herself walking determinedly over to him to plop down facing him, straddling his lap. It was definitely way too strong of a move, but Jasmine shared a private giggle with herself imagining the possible expressions that would befall his eyes; she doubted very much that he would show much of an emotion one way or another on his face.

After seating herself restrainedly behind him, Jasmine breathed a quiet 'Yessss…' as she reached out to gently lift his hair and let it fall into her lap. Severus gave a quiet, rumbling chuckle in response to her eagerness and slid down another few inches to put himself at a more appropriate height for her. Jasmine grinned fondly at the back of his head. She knew he loved this, no matter what he said or how he acted to the contrary.

At first, Jasmine allowed her hands to glide through it over and over again, feeding the long black tendrils through her fingers, watching the way it moved and bent against her skin. It was heavy and thick as always and privately, she had to be thankful for whatever gene he possessed that allowed him to keep such thick hair into his 'middle ages', if that is what it could be considered for wizards. He had explained to her a while back that magical people, witches and wizards, tended to live longer than Muggles, oftentimes exceeding one-hundred years of age. She had been both surprised and not at the same time to hear that information.

Currently, Severus was still at least pretending to pay attention to the movie, sitting slouched and cross-legged with his shoulders against her shins behind him. He did not seem at all bothered by what she was doing, so she continued, gliding her hands through his hair closer and closer to his scalp. All this time, in the past and until then, Jasmine had refrained from touching his scalp, unsure whether it would be…weird or whatever. It was not like she had hesitation toward it any other time, as evidenced by her attack on him only a few minutes earlier. So she formulated a plan and waited, patient. They were still early into the movie.

She continued stroking the longer portions of his hair, foregoing the use of her brush. Why use an inanimate object instead of saving it all for own two, bare hands? Just once, she allowed both of her hands to close around two handfuls of it, but she quickly let go, forcefully dragging her mind back, refusing to let it wander. He was her _friend_ for God sake, pretty much a ' _best'_ sort of situation by then. She flat out would not push things and risk ruining it.

After a while, Severus shifted slightly, humming contentedly, quietly as he rolled his neck to the side, where his cervical joints let out three grinding, disgusting cracks. Jasmine snorted, shaking her head.

"Mmm," she thrummed sarcastically. "I _love_ it when people crack their joints this close to me."

"Mmm," he replied, moving yet again until he could lean his head back slightly and to the side to rest it on the inside of her knee. His cheek was warm against her skin and the smile that met her face in response was outrageous. "I forgot. My apologies." Severus paused and glanced back her. "Plus, extra for if I fall asleep."

"Which you wil-" she grumbled but he interrupted, raising his voice.

" _Which I will…"_ he repeated her loudly, giving her a warning, playful half-glare from the corner of one eye. "Sorry in advance."

Jasmine laughed and forced herself to look back to the TV, not stare openly at the two jagged scars on his neck, exposed to her by the location of his hair in her lap and his new position of leaned slightly sideways. However, in their most recent distraction from the movie, she had inadvertently stopped touching his hair, which Severus apparently did not find much to his taste. She started when he spoke, caught distracted once again.

"I never asked you to stop…"

Goosebumps spread over her skin like she had just been clothed in a warm invisible blanket and without hesitation, she slid all ten of her fingers, tips and nails, up the back of his neck, against his skin, up into his hair, dragging them along his scalp.

His reaction was immediate and totally worth waiting for.

A deep breath passed into his lungs through his nose in something of a slow gasp before he exhaled the breath on a low, rumbling moan that was so deep from his chest, Jasmine could feel it leave him through the couch against his back. As predicted, the goosebumps she had just worn grew almost painful in their severity and she shivered openly, not bothering to hide it as Severus' eyes slid shut and he rolled slightly, pressing his forehead against her knee.

It was the most instinctual, natural groan, an honest reflection of how good her hands had felt at that moment. Against every ounce of effort he typically put into disguising his emotions, both as a doctor and just…as him, he had let out the most delicious sound. One that left Jasmine feeling rather flushed, much too warm. But she ignored it with supreme effort and grinned happily, moving her hand to glide her fingertips and nails along the side of his head, through his softer baby hairs and the wispy little broken pieces from where he knotted his hair too tightly, combing through it against his scalp. The motion of this pulled more of it away from his face, exposing his regal jawline and the pleasantly masculine angle it formed with his neck and shoulders. He hummed again, eyes still closed against her leg, seeming to positively bask in her touch. It was honestly the sweetest thing, she had to admit.

Jasmine laughed quietly. "Feel nice?" she asked in a much softer, huskier voice than she had meant to use.

If it sounded out of the ordinary or strange, Severus did not act like it but instead adjusted his head again before replying, "Very.".

Her smile expanded as she leaned back against the couch behind her, gliding her nails and the tips of her fingers through his hair, tracing patterns on his scalp and the soft skin on the back of his neck. Eyelids grew heavy and Paul McCartney was singing.

 _"Eight days a week, is not enough to show I care!_

 _Ooo I need your love, babe, guess you know it's true,_

 _Hope you need my love, babe, just like I need you…"_

…

Severus woke with a start in the sudden darkness. How he knew it had been sudden, he was unsure at first, until a bright blue screen flashed onto the television and he sighed quietly. The movie had clearly ended, and the apartment was consequently dark and nearly silent, were it not for her ice maker churning away noisily in the freezer. Through the haze of sleepiness, he vaguely noticed how still she was being in spite of one of her favorite movies and music just ending. He sat up slowly from where he had fallen asleep using Jasmine's soft lower thigh as a pillow and turned his head to frown at her in the darkness.

She was asleep.

With the motion of turning to look, he had felt a pressure on the back of his head like his hair had caught on something and he grinned, glancing down at her extended hand; she must have fallen asleep touching it. At just the thought of it, of her wonderful hands gliding through his hair, raking against his scalp, the back of his neck, the sides of his head, Severus gave a pronounced shiver as a tight spasm, stronger than the one he had experienced earlier, shot across his lower abdomen once again. He blinked at her shadowy figure in the dark, thankful that she was asleep.

Time to go.

Pushing his loose hair away from his face, he rose from the carpet to his feet, stumbling a step or two with the rush of having woken so suddenly after being so deeply asleep. Part of him wished he had slept there until morning and considered lying back down to stay until then. How nice it would be to wake up beside her, pull her close and do adult things until real life separated them. One thing was for sure, they sure as hell wouldn't be going to Oakes' party if that was the case.

With a silent swish of his wand and a faint 'pop', a soft, pastel yellow blanket appeared hovering on the air, which Severus seized before draping it gently atop her. Again, a wild part of him wanted to drop the blanket on her face, trip on something, slam a door, but as he stood there staring down at her sweet, peaceful form resting so deeply, he opted against it and instead stepped out onto her small shaded balcony to Apparate home. And not a moment too soon; he felt as though he could explode.

Upon his arrival at his house, a heavy breath of air escaped him, and he wasted no time in heading straight back to his bedroom to rid himself of his jeans. He had been uncomfortable in them most of the night, for reasons that were beyond him, but he refused to wear loose, soft pants when they were alone. It may have been silly of him, but he had found that pajama pants and the like were not exactly good at disguising certain parts of his anatomy and were he to react to her a certain way, it would be much too obvious.

He would rather _die_ than allow that to happen.

True enough, all it took was his hand brushing against the zipper for him to hiss a breath in through his teeth, the muscles along his back twitching sensitively. He rolled his eyes, foregoing the removal until he had waved his hand to charm the shower to begin running. Certainly not to get warm by any means; he wanted it as cold as it could be.

Feeling annoyed with himself for his weakness, he hastily unbuckled his leather belt and unbuttoned the three metal buttons on the jeans in a vertical row, sighing quietly in relief as some of the pressure was released. His eyes shot to the small digital clock on his nightstand: 2:46am. Jasmine was asleep, there was no way she could possibly have woken up after his departure, as he had been silent and purposely careful not to wake her. With a growl of frustration, he turned and lay down on his bed, folding his hands resolutely across his chest, closing his eyes to take deep breaths.

He could not do it again. He had felt so disgusted with himself, so guilty and so far out of order that he could barely look her in the face the next day. It was not completely outlandish for him to have relented to his desires as a man, the things he needed. As a doctor, he knew that it was scientific fact that men _and_ women needed these sort of releases at least occasionally. It was healthy. Hell, he was not ashamed of what he had done, but rather, who and what he had fantasized about. Jasmine had looked so very realistic inside the most private corner of his mind, where he was free to imagine how it would be to drag his dick in and out of her while she clutched his hair and cried out his name.

Ugh, his hair and her hands. That was what had sparked it this time. The time previous had been related to a truly obscene dream he had experienced and consequently woke up with possibly the most painful hard on he had experienced in quite a long time. But earlier that night, when her nails had slid up the back of his scalp, he had needed to withstand a strong shiver as chills had rolled up his spine and he almost did not manage it. Instead, goosebumps had flooded his skin, dilating his blood vessels and sending a large portion of blood designated for his brain _elsewhere_ for the time being. He had even used _Occlumency_ while she was at it, in an effort to put his mind somewhere else, shut it off while she invited his mind back to those same places that had made him feel so guilty and shameful the following night at work.

The shower was running in his bathroom, but Severus was stalling, lying shirtless on his bed on his back, jeans half undone, boxer briefs low about his hips, exposing an inch or two of hardening, trapped cock. Nope, he would not acknowledge it. If he ignored it, maybe it would go away. As just that thought passed through his mind, he snorted in exasperation at this hopeful assumption; as if that had ever _ever_ worked in the past.

With a growl, he reached down, finally undoing the zipper to free himself before kicking off his boots. He sighed in relief, eyes sliding shut as he moved his boxers and allowed his length to lay against his lower stomach, throbbing in time with his quickened heartbeat. He lay there for several long moments, breathing deeply, evenly, feeling somewhat annoyed with himself for giving in to such a base need, something so crass, but then again, if he did not, he knew he would be grumpy and unable to sleep properly. Then Jasmine would bug him by asking what was wrong all day, to which he could _not_ reply, "Yeah, sorry I'm in such a shit mood. I was dead horny last night but chose not to do anything about it, so here we are."

Besides, after the scalp massage she had given him, there was no way he could refuse it. Her fingers had been so soft and gentle and small, each touch a perfect caress until she needed to be firm. At one point, she had pushed her thumb against the back of his neck and moved it upward into his back hairline, at which point Severus had needed to clear his throat and shift positions slightly as his dick had given a throb in response. He had also moaned outright and did not regret it; he felt her shiver at the sound of his voice and knew she liked it.

So, in his mind, getting off alone was nothing, no problem. Natural.

However, thinking about his very close female friend, not to mention co-worker, whilst doing it was _not okay_ , especially not when he already harbored feelings for her and was too much of a coward to fess up or make a move.

With a groan of urgency, he reached down, resting his large, warm hand across himself, squeezing gently and allowing a heavy sigh to expand and contract his chest. His body reacted to his touch at once, throbbing sharply within his palm and causing him to inhale a short gasp of pleasure. In the back corner of his mind, he imagined a plush pair of lips and tongue in place of his hand, warm, wet and inviting. Soon after, a blue pair of eyes formed, and the ghost of his imagination allowed his sensory nerves to trick him into feeling soft, curly blonde hair dragging across his sensitive skin.

He could not stop himself from letting out a deep, rumbling groan as mind-Jasmine appeared again in that shadowed, restricted area of his brain. She looked very like the real-life Jasmine, only constantly willing to do unspeakable things with him and to him. He briefly reflected on the sensation that had crawled up his spine at the feeling of her nails on his scalp. How desperately he wanted to feel those nails drag down his chest and stomach, taking any clothing with them before catching him between those lovely, full lips of hers-

The heel of Severus' left socked foot left the floor to push into the edge of his mattress while his back tensed, arching away from the bed a bit as his hand worked steadily up and down, slowly. His breathing had quickened and grown shallow somewhere during the past few minutes, but he did not bother attempting to regulate it. It _was_ ridiculous, he _was_ a grown-ass man but damn, did it feel good. So much of his time was being spent with Jasmine, which meant that a majority of his time was now spent shutting out an increasingly loud and opinionated portion of his internal dialogue. It was getting to the point that all Jasmine had to do was walk past him and grin that certain way, or absentmindedly lick her lips or do that thing she did when she bit down on her bottom lip and let it roll beneath her teeth when she was being silly and trying not to giggle and he was drooling over her like an animal.

Another tightening sensation spread through his abdomen from the place his hand contacted his body and Severus gasped, jaw dropping open as a low groan escaped him. He was breathing much heavier now, a torrent of mental images flying through his head until at last his back arched sharply again, his head rocked back, and he came, hard. His body jerked with each spurt, but he wasted absolutely no time in Vanishing it before rising hastily from his bed and ducking into the bathroom for that shower.

Violent shivers of heightened sensitivity wracked his body as he stepped into the water he had felt safe enough to warm up. If he had been tired before, it was nothing to what he felt then, but all he had to do was wash his skin. His hair was still very clean, having washed it only that morning. He sighed once his body temperature had adjusted to the streams of water hitting his flesh, his eyes closed as the water rinsed his long hair into his face, forming black sheets, which he shook away impatiently. One last low moan escaped him as he rested his head against the tile.

That had been exactly what he had needed, even though he had ended up doing exactly what he had sternly told himself not to do. Instead of anywhere but inside his head, Jasmine, once again, was right at the forefront of his mind, but…

Honestly, why the fuck should he care?

Why _should_ he force himself not to think about her? She was something very close to a best friend for him by then, and on top of that, she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever known, in both personality and physical appearance. So, if Jasmine ever somehow found out (which she would not, even if he died), and if she had some sort of problem with it, Severus could defend himself by making the point that if she didn't want him thinking about her in those occasional throes of personal pleasure, all she had to do was stop being so _hot_ all the god damn time.

There. Problem solved.

Feeling leagues better about himself, Severus continued through the rest of the shower until heavy clouds of sleepiness began rolling over him. Within minutes, he was naked, asleep and very comfortable in his own bed.

…..

"Sev, you _can't_ wear a shirt with a British flag on it to a 4th of July party!" Jasmine was scolding him the next day after she had gotten into his car outside her apartment building and turned to see him wearing a plain black shirt with one simple chest pocket in the pattern of a Union Jack.

He snorted disdainfully through his nose, eyebrows arched as he turned toward her to place his arm behind her headrest and turn to back out of the tricky, tight garage.

"I most certainly can, thank you," he replied in the poshest possible tone he could manage, glancing down with a smirk while she glared daggers up at him. "I don't play for this team."

After a few blinks, Jasmine rallied. "Are you a citizen?" she asked leadingly, as though the answer was bound to be yes and Severus found himself surprised that they had never covered his citizenship in their countless hours of conversation until that point.

In a maddeningly casual way that he knew would drive Jasmine crazy, he shrugged, returning his hand to the front of the car to change gears again. "Well, I don't pay taxes, I don't vote," he began to explain, giving his face a forceful-looking expression, one of real contemplation. "In fact, I don't think the federal government knows I exist, aside from my DEA number for controlled drugs. Hm, weird, that."

At long last, he looked over at Jasmine to find that her face had gone very rigid indeed and for one moment, he was reminded forcefully of Minerva McGonagall. He laughed, convinced the old woman would adore this Muggle if ever they were to meet. Jasmine crossed her arms and legs together so tightly, Severus wondered if he might need to resort to magic to unstick her.

"Well, that sounds an awful lot like _cheating,_ Doctor…"

"Oh, stop. You know why it has to be that way."

"…Still."

After the revelation of his magic to her, Severus had explained in detail to her over the course of two days why he needed her word that she would never ever reveal anything about his true past, his real identity, absolutely nothing personal about him beyond the story that he had given her originally. As far as she knew, he was a former chemistry professor from England who started his medical training overseas then transferred to Boston, where he completed medical school and began at the hospital. That was all she knew.

However, in return for her silence, Jasmine had made him swear to her that he would only ever use magic on muggles, _especially_ patients, in ways to benefit them or save them. This had been perfectly agreeable, as it was what he had been doing already. Yes, he had pranked Oakes a few times and messed with Jasmine on less occasions than that, but it had only been out of boredom. Now that he was free to use magic around Jasmine, he found himself more willing to go long stretches at the hospital without it. Their rules had been well tolerated so far, although every now and again, Severus wondered if Jasmine perhaps regretted forbidding him from messing with Oakes.

At that moment, a familiar song to both of them came on the radio, flowing through the speakers into his car. Severus smirked, reaching out to turn it up.

"See? The most American song ever written," he said, smirk expanding to show teeth when Jasmine whipped her head to glare over at him. She gave him a very fake but very scathing look, one that dragged her eyes in a convincingly disgusted way up and down his body, as though he was most revolting thing she had ever seen. He laughed at this. It was his favorite thing she did, and he knew she did it to make him laugh.

"You don't even know what this song is called or who it's by, limey," she said rather aggressively for someone with such a sweet voice.

Severus scowled at her after the car had stopped at a red light. The song continued.

"It's called 'Fortunate Son' by Creedenc-"

He had begun to answer her question but Jasmine suddenly gasped, interrupting him, and reached out to his arm, shaking it. Her eyes had lit up that he had known the answer to the trivia, but she had maintained her playfully offended expression.

"You don't get to talk about Creedence Clearwater Revival, traitor!"

Dr. Mark Oakes' preppy little townhome was not in the central city of Boston but rather just outside of it in one of the nicer communities, where old brick roads still existed and ancient brownstones sat protected between newly constructed apartment buildings and complexes. His silver Audi was parked on the street out front, along with half a dozen other cars, at the sight of which Severus groaned.

"Once again, I ask…do we _have-"_

"You know what I'm gonna say…"

"I know. Don't."

Jasmine was going to say that he was free to go if he really wanted, but she would like him to stay if possible. He could Apparate to wherever he wanted, and she would stay, keep his keys then bring him his car later. It had happened before on a night where Severus had been called to the hospital for an emergency consult while they had been out. But he had never wanted to up and puss out on a social event entirely with her; he did not want to give her the impression that he was somehow unreliable or unwilling to do things with her. So he stayed, stuck it out, and usually had a great time despite how much he had been against going.

After parking the car a little ways down the street, both got out and moved to the sidewalk, where Jasmine waited for him to lock it and pocket his keys. As he turned however, he finally caught sight of what _she_ was wearing and his stomach clenched. She was not wearing anything out of the ordinary, just denim shorts and a plain white tank top, leather sandals and messenger bag but he still felt sucker punched by seeing her head on like this, standing there in the bright summer sun. She was stunning. He did not allow this to become obvious in his demeanor, he did not pause in his movements but instead joined her on the sidewalk, shaking his head.

"That shirt is fantastic by the way," he mumbled as they began walking, grinning when Jasmine nodded, plucking at the white material depicting Benjamin Franklin wearing American flag sunglasses and clutching a red Solo cup amidst the caption 'Ain't no party like a Boston Tea Party'.

"Thanks, I know. It's pretty much the only reason I wanted to come."

"You better be joking."

The closer they drew to the party, the louder a bass-heavy song grew until it was all they could hear at the door to Oakes' place. Jasmine raised a hand to knock but rolled her eyes, likely figuring there was no way it would be heard beneath the din of music and loud voices. Instead, she turned the handle and pushed, stepping inside as the glass door swung inward on the house.

The inside was done simply, with dark furniture and décor, rather similar to Severus', though it bore none of the massive, loaded bookshelves against the walls. In their stead was an obscenely large flat screen television on one and surround sound speaker system mounted to the other three. Severus rolled his eyes as he followed Jasmine further into the house, until familiar voices reached his ears.

Mark was standing in the kitchen, leaned against the counters, beer in hand, laughing about something that had just been said when he and Jasmine appeared in the way. For the briefest of seconds, the two men locked eyes, and somehow, Severus had the distinct feeling that he and his colleague would be speaking privately concerning the nature of their arrival together. It was tempting to roll his eyes, but he refrained and instead made a mental note of it not to get drunk and be overly flirtatious with her. Mark was constantly looking for little things to pin on this supposed great hidden romance of theirs and Severus would genuinely like to avoid future comments and concerns, or God forbid rumors that might reach Sinclair's ears.

"Hi, you guys!" Jasmine greeted excitedly as Rebecca walked up to hug her in greeting, at that same time giving Severus a very inquisitive bordering on suspicious look as well. This time the urge to roll his eyes was so overwhelming he had to walk away, though he had not needed to go far; Oakes was already to him, shit-eating grin spread ear to ear.

"We should get you a drink or three and have a smoke, hm?" he asked in a very pointed sort of way before clapping him heavily on the shoulder. Without waiting for a response, he basically turned Severus away from the small crowd in the kitchen toward his sliding glass doors leading out into a small patio and garden area where the music had originated. The general conversation in the kitchen had been disbanded at he and Jasmine's appearance so he and Mark left unnoticed.

"Nice shirt, by the way, asshole," Mark commented once Severus had poured himself a heavier measure of whiskey than usual and added three ice cubes; it was hot.

He took a sip and motioned the glass in his colleague's direction. "Cheers," he replied in earnest, smirking. "My neighbor gave me the finger this morning on my way out."

Mark laughed. "Jasmine?"

"Hates it."

The smirk he had been wearing expanded to show a few teeth as he took another deep sip. But from the way Oakes was grinning back at him, he felt his stomach give an uncomfortable squirm, his mind playing him a very quick snapshot of his evening _after_ he had gotten home from Jasmine's the previous night.

"Speaking of Jasmine-" Oakes began, ignoring Severus when he rolled his eyes and drained yet more of his glass. "…you can't tell me there's-"

"Nothing going on," Severus ended his sentence flatly, glancing back at the glass doors to ensure she was still preoccupied. "Yes, I can, because there isn't." He looked down and accepted a disgusting American cigarette from Oakes as he extended one to him, figuring he might as well embrace the holiday in at least one way. He would stink like smoke but maybe that would keep a bit more space between he and Jasmine that night.

With an exasperated shake of his head, Mark seemed to believe him, but a vague suspicion seemed to hang behind nonetheless as he lit his own cigarette.

"How long have you had feelings for her?"

A wave of surprise washed over him, but he did not allow it to manifest among his features, opting instead to take a long pull from his cigarette. He exhaled fully before replying.

"Astute observation, Doctor," he grumbled sarcastically, though he knew it was in vain. Any argument he could possibly make, any denial of it would be wasted; Mark had worked with him for five years, starting very shortly after he had. Aside from Jasmine, this was the only other person in the hospital Severus felt knew him beyond his exterior. He attempted it though and continued. "Did you ever think it was possible for two people to just be friends without other things involved?"

Mark laughed. "Two straight guys?" he asked, motioning between himself and Severus. "Sure. A straight guy and a straight girl? No."

Severus rolled his eyes, flicking ash from the end of his cigarette.

"Besides that, you two are constantly together, _still._ I thought it would die down after you two finally fucked and got over it-"

"You're disgusting-"

"-but no! You two are still going strong and lying about it and it's driving everyone crazy."

"Really? Everyone?"

"Yes, Prince. Everyone."

….

Jasmine had just brought her drink to her lips in the kitchen when she noticed Severus through the glass windows looking out onto the shaded porch, where he stood smoking a cigarette across from Oakes. Part of her wanted to be annoyed at him for smoking but she never really blamed him for doing it in these sort of situations. He was not a very social being and she knew it helped him relax a bit, get away from the general population to decompress if he needed it. He never did it around her without good reason so that was the best she could hope for. But something else about him was drawing her eyes.

She had noticed it a little bit earlier, on first getting into his car, when they had first arrived, and it was now more distinct than ever. Something about him was different, noticeably so. He seemed calmer, at ease, _taller_ somehow, his eyes full of something she could not place. Above all, he looked confident, masculine, and Jasmine supposed that was the closest words she could find to describe it. He looked happy, content, sure of himself and where he was. 'Perfect' was the only other word she could choose to describe him at that moment in time.

Standing there outside with a glass of whiskey, he was leaned against the outdoor kitchenette's counter, black eyes squinted slightly, handsomely, in the sunlight while a breeze pushed bits of hair around his face, listening while Oakes talked. Even the way he had dressed that day was something of note, as he looked beyond handsome in the black, Union Jack pocket t-shirt, along with jeans that looked to have been tailored specifically for him earlier in the day. She now knew that he had used magic to make them fit perfectly, but he had done a very good job. They were snugger in the right places, loose in the others and long enough to just nearly touch the ground when he stood upright. He had opted to wear his dark gray boots, which gave him an extra tiny bit of height but somehow caused him to positively tower over her. Over the months, his hair had grown very slowly but enough that he was starting to be able to push it back behind his ears, and he did so while she watched him through the window, exposing his jawline.

 _Well, damnit,_ she thought enviously, giving a fake laugh as though she had definitely been paying attention to Rebecca's joke. _I think I'm in love with that guy._

Party to be continued in the next chapter! Leave me a review if you want to and if you love these two as much as I do!

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-QoM


	21. Lost and Found

Severus glanced up as the patio doors opened and Jasmine stepped out, followed by Rebecca, giggling and concluding their conversation as they walked over to join them, cups in hands. Oakes grinned, pointing at Severus' shirt as their laughter died down.

"I heard you hate his shirt, Jasmine," Oakes commented, chuckling. "I do too."

At this, Jasmine gasped, looking offended as she turned her eyes on Severus. "You told him I hate it?" she asked but did not wait for an answer before turning back to Oakes. "I don't _hate it._ I'd just like it a lot better if he wasn't wearing it on America's birthday!"

Everyone laughed at this, including Jasmine, and Severus found himself once again surprised at how much he enjoyed that she did not mind being the funny, goofy one at parties and outings. She was not exactly a social butterfly, for which Severus was also grateful, as she did not make or keep a lot of friends around. She was a more private person, surprisingly, but she still enjoyed making people laugh and ensuring that everyone was having a good, stress-free time. It may have been a part of her skills as a nurse, Severus was not sure.

Either way, she swatted him on the arm and half-turned to walk away with Rebecca. "I'm just kidding," she said. "I think he looks smashing, _dahhhling_." And with that, she let out another loud laugh at the flat expression on his face before flouncing away with more girlish giggles.

While she and Rebecca walked away to go sit at a large, shaded patio set, Severus looked back to Mark, who was staring at him, both eyebrows raised in a very disbelieving sort of way. He shook his head, finishing the last of his beer and tossing the bottle into a bin.

"Nothing going on," he mumbled, grabbing another cold beer and clapping Severus on the shoulder heavily as he passed to join the others at the outdoor table. "Sure thing, buddy."

Severus turned to follow as well, rolling his eyes and wondering vaguely how long he and Jasmine were supposed to keep this up. It was starting to make him, and apparently everyone else, crazy.

…..

Sometime around sunset, the fireworks at the neighboring houses started in earnest, and before long, it sounded and felt a bit like sitting in the middle of a warzone. As evidence of this, Jasmine had been sitting next to Severus in the gathering darkness, talking and laughing with the rest of Oakes' guests, friends of the hospital and co-workers when the first loud mortar was ignited. It exploded in the air above them with a deep, deafening thump like that of an actual explosion and just beside her, Jasmine felt Severus start with a jolt. It was very slight, only noticeable to her as she was sitting closer to him than the others, but it was a real reaction all the same. Discreetly under the table, she reached over to simultaneously place her hand gently and reassuringly on his forearm, while pressing her middle finger to his wrist over his pulse point.

His heart was positively hammering inside him, despite how unphased he appeared externally. But as she had kept her hand there, counting his heartrate in her head, she felt his pulse gradually slow until it returned to normal. A part of her heart broke for him that he had experienced such traumatic things in his past; _actual_ warfare, battles and demons, Dark Lords and all manner of madness. She certainly understood having things in your past that affected you forever, no matter how 'over it' one feels they are. Though it was reassuring above all to feel that she could help him relax, come back from that moment of anxiety, no matter how brief. She grinned to herself; she would always be there for him if he wanted her to be.

After a while, after the sun had fully retreated, Jasmine found herself quite inebriated, along with just about everyone else at Oakes' house. Severus was the only one who seemed to be holding it together, but even he seemed a bit slower and less uptight than when they had first arrived. Most of the other guests had gone by then, which left her and Severus, Rebecca and their other friend Kelly, and Oakes, who Jasmine thought might have been trying to sleep with Kelly. Oakes had pulled out his phone and searched for American history trivia, for which Jasmine and Severus had made an informal team versus Kelly and Rebecca. She sat across from him, smirking cheekily as they prepared to positively annihilate their opponents. She was very good at American history, Severus was awful, so they were pretty evenly matched.

"Okay," Oakes began, clearing his throat and squinting one eye blearily at his phone to focus the words. "For…" he paused to glance up at the rest of the table. "For Jasmine and Sev- who was the first president to live in the White House?"

At this, Severus let out a hiss of a laugh through his teeth, dropping his head. Jasmine grinned at him as he looked over a moment later, squinting at her. She knew the answer, of course she did, but she knew without a doubt that he did not. There was no way. If he admitted he did not know, she would step in and answer and yet, after looking directly at her, he then looked to Oakes and said, "John Adams."

Jasmine's jaw fell open in surprise as Kelly and Rebecca groaned and Oakes looked shocked. How the hell…?

"Wow, Okay," Oakes said, shaking his head as he looked for maybe harder questions in the list. "Becca and Kelly next…Which country first recognized America as its own country?"

The girls were stumped. Rebecca guessed Spain, and it was not that far off, but Oakes still groaned and looked to Jasmine and Severus once again. "Does 'Team Britannica' know the answer over there?" he asked, snorting a drunk chuckle at his own cleverness.

Jasmine rolled her eyes before looking to Severus, who once again said, "Morocco," the moment she had locked gazes with him. "-in the year of our Lord seventeen-hundred and seventy-seven," he added for good measure, bouncing his eyebrows once somewhat haughtily at her across the table. She stared back, flabbergasted, as Mark laughed, shaking his head.

"Okay, he's definitely cheating somehow but yeah, that's right," he admitted, scrolling once again for more questions. "Rebecca and Kelly-"

Jasmine felt her stomach clench as those words arrived at her intoxicated brain. Cheating? Wasn't that what she called it when he was using magic to get away with things he could easily do without it? With a fresh scowl on her face, she waited for the next question. There was no way he was doing what she thought he was doing.

Rebecca and Kelly answered their question correctly and it was soon back to her and Severus, who was looking thoroughly pleased with himself. Jasmine ignored him for the time being and listened for the question.

"This is a hard one, Prince, just for you," Oakes prefaced the question before reading, "In what year and on what city did the United States drop the first atomic bomb?"

Jasmine had to bite back a comment; it was not a hard question at all, Oakes was just an idiot. But she wondered briefly whether Severus might know it, simply from knowing a bit of world history, though she did not hesitate to force herself to think the wrong answer, putting maximum mental strength into keeping her thoughts away from the real answer.

 _1946, Nagasaki_

"1946, Nagasaki," Severus said confidently while Jasmine frowned at him and her stomach dropped to somewhere around her ankles, her head spinning slightly.

Holy shit.

"Oh! That's wrong!" Oakes' exclaimed delightedly, which Severus ignored and turned to Jasmine, smirking as she stared back at him, eyes massive. "Becca? Kelly?"

The girls went on to guess the date incorrectly, at which point Jasmine finally said, "Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945," staring at Severus pointedly while he leaned sideways in his chair, using his elbow on the armrest to brace his jaw with a few fingers, staring determinedly back at her, unflinchingly. Jasmine felt herself blushing under his dark gaze.

When Oakes went on to read another question, she hastily forced her mind to think clearly, knowing that she had to confirm it for herself, rather than perhaps find out the hard way. She thought the words, "Are you reading my thoughts?", eyes locked with him while a sly grin slowly tugged upward on the curve of his lips.

In response, he merely blinked once, nodded his head twice, then blinked again with only one eye, winking very discreetly at her.

Jasmine could have died.

She looked away hastily from him, but the questions died out after a few more and Severus did not continue his little game, possibly concerned that he had upset her or unsettled her. Which he had unsettled her, but only because she had so much inside her mind that she would rather not let him see or hear yet. Not only did she consistently fantasize about him doing explicit things to her body, about what it would be like to have him trapped beneath her, gripping her hips and thrusting to meet her, or perhaps behind her in the shower, but she had also slipped off daydreaming several times, only to come to and realize her underwear had soaked completely through.

So there was that.

There was also the very recent development of Jasmine finally admitting to herself that she was indeed falling in love with him. Though she did not have the sober clarity of mind to decide on that for sure; she wanted to at least wait until the alcohol had completely left her blood before making that call. But she knew without a doubt that she wanted him more than anything in the world and loved him endlessly as her close friend.

All of that, and he could read minds apparently just by looking at her eyes.

No big deal.

After another hour or so of laughter, drinking and joking around, Severus and Jasmine were leaving the charming little townhouse and stepping out into the smoky street, where snaps, pops and bangs were heard every few moments. Jasmine was thoroughly drunk by that point, but Severus seemed alright, walking quietly at her side while she giggled and looked up at him.

"Are you okay to drive?" she asked, despite how collected he seemed, and none to her surprise, he nodded. "Okay, good," she breathed, snorting a very silly giggle through her nose. "Because I am _not."_

Severus grinned but again, did not reply. He merely tucked one hand into his pocket and produced his keys, selecting the only vehicle key on the ring where only a few other, rarely used keys resided. One of those keys belonged to Jasmine's apartment, which she had given him to use in case of emergency, just as she had done with her best friend in California when she had first lived alone. And who better to trust with her house key than the one person on Earth who made her feel the safest? Unharmable when he was around?

She looked up at him again and shook her head. There was nothing to decide. She did not need to be sober to be sure. She was absolutely beyond crazy about him and if he read the truth in her mind, so be it. At least she would not have to say it aloud to him and risk the rejection. But…what if he _had_ already seen it? What if he had seen it and the way he treated her now was his version of a rejection? Perhaps the fact that he had not made a move nor communicated any reciprocated feelings was because he had seen all those things in her mind and wanted nothing to do with it?

As they reached his car and Jasmine moved to walk unsteadily to the passenger door, she hesitated, turning when she heard his voice say her name. He had followed her to the door and was about to open it, but hesitated, looking at her directly. Jasmine felt her insides flutter when she noticed how closely he stood to her, whether drunkenly unintentional or not. He smelled like cigarettes and alcohol, but she did not care. He smelled downright patriotic.

"I hope you know that I've never before invaded your mind without permission like that. I've only ever used that skill against you when I needed to protect myself from being discovered." He said all this with a tone in his voice that sounded a bit hesitant but also firm and even a bit defensive, as though he really needed her to understand before they got in the car. Jasmine nodded but he continued. "I'm sorry if it made you feel uncomfortable earlier. I won't do it again."

With a bit of a laugh, Jasmine patted him sloppily on the arm, grinning like a fool as she shrugged. "It's fine, don't worry. I've got nothing to hide from you. I feel like you know everything already," she said, though she could feel the silly smile on her face flicker ever so slightly. Well, maybe he knew _almost_ everything. A drop of disappointment slipped into her blood stream. She had purposely gotten this drunk and _still,_ it was not enough to make her spill those deepest feelings for him.

….

With an understanding smile, Severus opened the passenger door for her, stepping back to let her past him. As she moved around, he was seized by a violent urge to grasp her arms, catch her up and kiss her with everything he had in him, but…she was drunk. It would have been the most manipulative, underhanded thing he felt he could do at that time, regardless of how much easier it would be to relay his feelings to her while intoxicated. But Jasmine was not in a state where she could make informed, logical decisions about whether or not she wanted him to be kissing her, touching her, so he refrained with ease. He could not bear to have Jasmine come back to him sober the following day and ask just what the fuck he thought he'd been doing. After shutting the door for her, he joined her in the driver's seat, started the car and began the short trek to take her home.

The car ride had been silent but not uncomfortably so. The radio was still on from earlier, playing quietly in the background while Jasmine and Severus rode quietly along together, half listening to the songs, half thinking, pensive. How desperately he would have liked to reach over and take her small, soft hand with his much larger one, clasp it until they arrived at her apartment. It was so _stupid_ that he had to even think longingly of such a simple gesture, how very ashamed of himself it made him feel to wish for something he could so easily just…do. It was frustrating to the highest degree, but he _could_ _not_ make himself do it. Not yet.

Once safely upstairs and after Jasmine had been given a glass of water with strict instructions to drink every drop of it, Severus disappeared onto her patio, removing his wand from the hip of his jeans. Jasmine had followed him excitedly, giggling while water sloshed over the edge of her glass and splashed on the floor. He shook his head with a deep grunt of a laugh while she stepped up next to him at the railing of the porch, where she bounced in anticipation a few times.

"You said they don't make any noise or smoke?" she asked as a distant Muggle firework exploded overhead and reflected its colorful explosion within her bright, glistening eyes. Severus nodded, pointedly keeping his gaze away from her as he raised his wand and focused on the incantation.

Three tiny gold sparks left the tip of the wand in a blinding blur, speeding across the night sky away from them until their light faded from their range of sight. Though only a moment later, the sky was full of the most beautiful, gossamer fine threads of golden light, which spilled away from the center much like a Muggle firework but in draped lines like those of a Weeping Willow. Jasmine 'oooh'-ed, her eyes glowing in awe, hands clasped together around her water glass beneath her chin. Severus smiled, returning his attention to the sky, where he repeated his action another five times with many different colors, patterns, firing some that chased each other and swirled together in the sky, some that simply exploded in the most dazzling displays.

"I think I'm gonna go lay down," Jasmine said after a while, so abruptly that Severus glanced down at her beside him with a frown, eyes bouncing back and forth between hers.

"Alright," he replied, his frown resolving into a smirk when she gave him a reassuring smile and patted him on the arm. Still, he watched her go, wondering whether she would go to her bedroom, the couch, or…She stepped away from him toward the glass doors into the living room of her apartment, where she stepped up, inside, made it another three steps before-

Thud.

Jasmine did a rather elegant little flop onto the living room floor, where Severus immediately rushed to her side, only to realize with a wave of relief that she was laughing her ridiculous belly laugh, still conscious. He had dropped to his knees beside her, but sighed and relaxed into a sitting position, Indian style as she rolled onto her back to grin goofily, blearily up at him. His back met the front of her couch where he relaxed against the leg rests, watching her, admiring her as she concluded her laugh and 'hmm-ed' contentedly, rolling onto her stomach to rest her chin in her hand.

He could barely look back.

Her immensely long, blonde curls had gone wild sometime during the night and were now framing her face, accenting her beautiful, sphynx-like, almond shaped eyes and cute, delicate nose. God damnit, he was such a weak fool. How could he ever call himself a man while this near perfect woman lay across from him, his best friend, a person whom he could now say with confidence that he cared about more than anyone else in the western hemisphere…He hesitated to say 'the world' just yet, but she was getting there, especially if she ever managed to get a hold of his-

"Sev?"

He blinked with a mild start, looking down in surprise as a gentle weight settled across his ankles and shins, to find that she had rested her head there, long curls splayed out behind her head across one of his knees. A gentle smirk met his lips and tugged upward, and for the briefest of moments, he nearly reached out to touch those blonde tendrils, but refrained, feeling something ugly rear its head deep in the pit of his stomach.

"Yes?" he asked, rolling his eyes to the ceiling and tilting his head back to exhale heavily but quietly. Why did he suddenly want to be alone so badly?

"Will you play with my hair?"

A tsunami of mingled relief and happiness flooded his body, sending serotonin coursing through his receptors and his heart jumped in excitement, the perception of fluttering within his chest triggered only by his brain. Without hesitation, he reached out, at long last allowing his large, warm hand to rest gently on the flushed side of her head, where he pressed a few fingers into her hairline and dragged backward along her scalp. Just as he had done the night before, Jasmine made a lovely sound, reaching out one hand to rest gently on his knee, at which he blinked blankly, only for a second before she withdrew it. He felt himself react to his, but he ignored it with force, clearing his throat quietly to continue his innocent ministrations.

Her hair was just as soft as he had imagined it would be. Until that point, he had never outright touched it with his bare hands, only on a rare occasion that she had flung it onto him, fallen asleep with it on or near him, and once when she had asked him to zip of the top of a dress and he had needed to move it. The curls were kinky and rather tight, somewhat uncommon for a girl of entirely white ethnicity, but at that moment, Severus realized he was not sure whether he had ever asked her what her heritage was. She certainly tanned easily enough to possibly not be fully white through her lineage. He glanced at the exposed profile of her face to find that her eyes were closed. He forewent the question for the time being and continued stroking her hair, each individual curl, gliding them between two fingers, gently, over and over, almost rhythmically.

After a few minutes, after Severus had assumed Jasmine had long since fallen asleep, he blinked and looked down at her in surprise when she spoke. Her normally soft voice was like a lullaby as she said his name again, fully this time.

"Severus?"

Goosebumps rose up along his flesh, coating his arms and chest. He fought a shiver with difficulty. He loved it when she said his name.

"Yes, Jasmine," he replied quietly, wondering what on Earth she could possibly request of him now. He honestly could not wait to find out and her momentary hesitation was killing him.

"I really love you, y' know?"

Severus positively gaped down at her, the movement of his hand ceasing abruptly, pausing on the side of her head. Did she mean…?

Fortunately, his silence seemed to spur her on.

"You're such a good friend to me," she continued, in what she clearly thought would be a comforting, hopeful tone. "I just…love you. I'm so glad I met you."

And there it was. His cue. Time to go home.

Anger, real, hot anger licked at his insides as he inhaled deeply through his nose, looking momentarily up at the ceiling for composure before issuing any sort of reply. Though it seemed from the way Jasmine sighed quietly and shut her eyes again, she was not seeking a response, merely informing him what a _great friend_ he was and how much she treasured their friendship. How familiar did that fucking sound? Not only was he mad about this girl, but all this time, he had been holding onto this small blossom of hope that eventually, something would happen that would create an opportunity for them to explore possibilities. But with just that sentence, that one statement, she had made real to him the reality, the _fact,_ that they were best friends and that any deviation toward something more could deeply disrupt the relationship they had already established. Imagine they did end up sleeping together, then emotions were shared, or worse, rejected, and they were not only no longer able to be friends, but unable to _work_ together.

He could barely handle the loss of her friendship, but he felt he might actually end up leaving his job if he and Jasmine could no longer work together. Her humor and sense of purpose, her skills and everything else were so invaluable to him in that area of his life that he would rather not do it at all if he could not see her there and hear her laugh there daily.

He did not respond, but instead watched her, continued to stroke the side of her head, through her hair, listening to the sound of her breathing as it grew deeper and heavy. He exhaled a breath, hanging his head, tracing one finger along her hairline as lightly as he could, smirking as she sighed in her sleep. No, he was not angry with her. It was not her fault. It was merely how things had worked out. They had come too far and worked too closely. But perhaps it was somehow possible for him to relay his feelings to her in a way that would not involve direct speech or conversation, nor even eye contact if it worked properly.

Focusing his mind, he stared down at this side of her head, willing himself entry into her mind while she slept. Despite the intrusion, he did not feel too bad about attempting this since there was a great chance it would not even work, and he was not listening in or prodding through her thoughts, only attempting to implant some of his own.

 _Legilimens_

He did not feel the heady, odd feeling that arose from connecting oneself to another's mind, but he continued anyway, figuring it was worth at try, regardless, even if only to simply get the words out for himself. A heavy sigh heaved his chest and he shook his head.

" _Jasmine, I can't tell you how I feel about you,"_ he thought with intent. " _Only because I'm too…cowardly or afraid of what might come of it, either positive or negative. I couldn't bear to lose your friendship now. You're too important to me. I didn't think I could ever feel like this toward someone else again and…"_ He took another deep breath, swallowing back a flutter of anxiety at the thought of saying this to her out loud, face to face. " _I think about you so frequently it's almost unfair. I look like an idiot at least five or six times a day, caught grinning like an asshole at something you said or did. It really is so embarrassing. I-"_

He cut himself off, shaking his head with finality. This was stupid, a waste of time. There was no way it would work. She would go on having no idea until he eventually had to watch her date and fall in love with some other unworthy man. Then maybe have that man's kid and die and he could spend the _next_ seventeen God damn years protecting it.

Shit. It was _really_ time to go home.

However, as he stirred gently to remove his ankles from beneath her head and straighten out his knees with a few grinds of cartilage on bone, Jasmine hummed in her sleep, her dry, heavy eyes fluttering as she struggled to see him through the dark he had created by waving his hand at the lamp. She frowned in an admittedly adorable way, her already pouty lips puckered even more.

"Sev?"

He pulled a fluffy, yellow pillow he had conjured for her months ago from the couch to push it under her head before he let his warm palm smooth the back of her hair to her scalp. Rendering her unconscious with that pass of his hand would have been too easy. He owed it to her to say goodnight. "Yes, love," he murmured quietly. "Go back to sleep."

"Are you leaving?" she asked a moment later.

Severus hesitated. Was he?

"I was going to leave unless you would like me to stay," he answered in a measured tone, hoping deep down that she would ask him to leave and hating himself for it. She was not to blame for this; he so desperately wanted to be alone.

A small hand reached out toward him, but only to stop halfway and rest abruptly on the carpet between them, in a jerky motion as though she had meant to do that but missed her mark. "Please stay?"

How could he say no?

After kicking off his boots, he lay down next to her, Summoning her bed things from her room. Two pillows and her orange creamsicle-colored comforter came zooming around the corner and landed atop them haphazardly with a soft 'flump'. Jasmine giggled sleepily, sighing comfortably as she replaced the pillow beneath her head with the one from her bed, pulled the comforter over her shoulder and was asleep again almost immediately.

Severus lay down on his side, eyes open, watchful in the dark. Her hand lay curled between them, her feminine, pretty fingers tucked beneath her palm, showing the plain silver band she wore on her pointer finger. Hoping she was asleep enough to not recognize this, he threw caution to the wind and reached out, wrapping his hand around her entire fist. There was no way he would be able to fall asleep there, but he would at least lay with her and stroke her fingers while she slept soundly under the comfort of his presence.

…..

When Jasmine arrived at the hospital the following evening, she pulled through the rows of cars, searching for Severus' black BMW but without real hope of finding him standing outside of it or nearby. Rather, she hoped to see that he was there at work in the first place, as he had vanished from her apartment sometime during the night and had not been there when she woke, as she had so desperately hoped he would be. It was not a problem that he had left, however Jasmine felt she would be lying if she said she was not disappointed to have woken up alone versus next to him. Aside from disappearing, he had not answered a text message nor call from her all day thus far; this made her more anxious than the fact that he had left.

But his car was indeed there, as she figured it would be, and her heart sank down into her diaphragm. So he was at work, but why wasn't he responding to her? With a sigh, she parked a few spaces down from him and slung her bag over her shoulder, figuring she could go straight to his office first since that was where she normally found him when he had gotten to work early.

Sure enough, three floors later, Jasmine stepped out of the elevator, decked in her scrubs and turned to find that the door to his office down the hall was open, the light inside turned on. Her stomach clenched; why was she suddenly so nervous to talk to him? Should she perhaps wait until the actual start of their shift? Let him come to her?

At that moment, the doors of the elevator thudded shut behind her and she huffed a breath, all anxiety gone from her expression as it fell flat. Who the hell did she think she was, getting nervous to see her best friend? She adored this man, what could he possibly do to deter her from talking to him? Less than a few nights ago, she had launched herself at him and practically draped herself obnoxiously on top of him, in a thoroughly unsexual way. It was Severus, she had done nothing wrong and it was about time for their shift to start; she had every right to retrieve him.

Approaching the door at a brisk walk, she was to it in seconds and knocked lightly on the door frame before looking inside the office through the tall, narrow window along the side of the door. She listened. A deep voice spoke a second later.

" _Yes?"_

His tone was already stretched; Jasmine cringed before finally looking up and into the room.

Dr. Prince was seated at his desk with a huge pile of mail and a short, silver dagger Jasmine hoped he had been using as a letter-opener. He looked extremely handsome, as always, wearing the reading glasses she had forced him to get after she caught him squinting at a book. The thin black frames rested lightly on the bridge of his nose, the shadow of which deepening the premature lines in his face. He glanced up at her entrance, sparing her one look before returning his attention to the letter in his hands. She entered the room more fully, helping herself to one of the two leather chairs across the desk from him. He did not speak again but was silent for several seconds before Jasmine finally broke it.

"Got mail?" she asked needlessly, watching with increasing trepidation that something was wrong when Severus inhaled deeply through his nose across from her and exhaled slowly, still avoiding her gaze.

"Clearly," he replied cooly, eyes still raking across the paper in his fingers. "I forgot I had a mailbox here." At long last, he glanced up to wave the piece of paper once with a lame flap. "This is from two-thousand and one requesting a consult at Mercy General. Don't think the patient is still awake, by chance?" He shook his head and very discreetly Vanished the letter from his hand with a quiet 'pop'.

Jasmine could not help but smile sympathetically at him; she had told him once, a while ago, that it was much nicer-sounding to refer to patients as 'awake' or 'asleep' instead of 'alive' or 'dead'. He had followed this idea since she mentioned it, at least in her presence.

"So, I'm really sorry about earlier."

The words left her mouth before she could stop them. She had no idea what the hell she was supposed to be apologizing for, but it seemed like maybe the right thing to do. Severus did not seem overtly angry at the moment, but something still seemed…off. A prophylactic apology seemed fitting nonetheless, though from the expression of confusion that had furrowed his brow, perhaps he was as confused as she was by her statement.

"The hell are you sorry for?" he asked somewhat lazily, picking up the knife to slit open another letter. "For getting drunk?" Severus paused again to shake his head with a quiet snort of a mirthless laugh. "If that's a thing, I owe you a lot of apologies," he concluded, still not looking up at her.

Jasmine stared back at his lowered face, at the eyes behind his glasses avoiding hers, annoyance finally breaking through her weird misplaced guilt. What the actual hell was his problem? With fresh emotions flooding her with adrenaline, she rose from the chair abruptly, smoothing out her scrub top as she walked to the door, which she reached and turned back to look at him. Still, the letter.

"Okay, well…are you coming? It's almost four," she said in a tone that she hoped would indicate very clearly that she was not happy with his attitude and would be demanding a change very shortly.

He nodded, a few pieces of black hair falling into his face with the motion while he read. "Yes, in a few minutes."

…

Jasmine did not wait to give any further response before leaving his office. He could practically feel waves of anger radiating from her, even without looking up and he sighed heavily into the emptiness of his office once the sound of her footsteps had retreated from his range of hearing. The reading glasses parted company with his face as he removed them and tossed them haphazardly atop the messy pile of unread mail. He absolutely had to talk to her later. Had to. He could not take this out on her; it was not her fault by any means. It was unfair, he knew it was, to have left in the middle of the night, but it was not as though he had left to sleep in his own bed. His night had been fitful and restless, imagining a life without Jasmine, working at the hospital, without Jasmine, meeting someone else, that was not Jasmine, trying to be interested in and attracted to someone else. It was impossible and he knew it. And worse, he had allowed himself to venture further into the imaginary nightmare world he had recently created for himself by imagining Jasmine falling for someone that was not him, some faceless, nameless piece of shit who did not care even a fraction of what _he_ felt for her. Some American idiot whom she would fall head over heels for, marry, settle down, have a child…It made him physically nauseous to think of it.

But it was this, however, that had led him to make the decision to finally tell her. Finally admit openly to his feelings for her, tell her verbally what he had been thinking the night before, attempting to implant into her mind while she slept. It obviously had not worked and that was a shame. How easy would that have been? His nerves were at an all time high, but something deep down told him to take it easy, everything would be alright. So, he listened and waited, though the assurances given by his own intuition was apparently not enough to quell his annoyance toward her for falling in love with some unknown entity in his imagination. How dare she do something completely hypothetical that he himself had dreamt up?

With a deep groan, he pushed the knuckles from both hands into his eyes and leaned back in his cushy, leather chair. He would have to apologize.

Downstairs, only a few minutes later, after he had stopped in the doctor's lounge for a preliminary cup of coffee, he found Jasmine standing alone at the massive central nurses' station, a stack of charts in front of her on the counter. Severus felt his heart skip frantically inside his chest, as though attempting to yank him back to the safety of his office, where he could be grumpy and alone. And yet, as he stood there watching her from a distance, he noticed her shoulders heave once in a deep inhale and sigh, her eyes closing momentarily, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

She was upset.

Damnit.

As he neared her, heart positively pounding, he reached out for one of the charts in front of her, to flip it open and train his eyes on the top line, without seeing it at all. The coast had already been checked clear, so that he did not have to lower his voice too much to speak and be heard only be her.

"I'm sorry," he grumbled, pausing when he felt Jasmine stiffen beside him, but she did not look up. "I have no excuse beyond a bad temper and too little to sleep, I'm afraid," he lied with absurd ease.

Thankfully, as was typically the case with Jasmine, he felt her tension release slightly a moment later, but instead of smiling contentedly up at him, she looked up with something akin to concern in her face. She glanced around quickly to make sure they were alone for the moment, however brief.

"Those are shitty excuses, Sev," she said quietly, expressive blue eyes darting back and forth between his stony, black ones. "What's really bothering you?" After a second's pause, she added, "I was really disappointed you were gone this morning. I was going to make you buy me breakfast."

At long last, she grinned playfully at him and Severus felt a great deal of his trepidation release from the knot in his chest. It was going to be fine; it was Jasmine. If she rejected him, it would be the worst thing in the world and he would have to leave the state entirely, but that was fine. At least he would not leave never knowing whether there could have been anything between them, he would have firm answer one way or another.

With a grunt of a laugh, he turned more fully toward her, to look out over the triage area directly over the top of her head before speaking. "Could we talk tonight after work?" he asked, feeling the urge to dry heave creep up on him. Maybe the coffee had not been a great idea; his anxiety plus the caffeine was not an ideal cocktail.

At this, Jasmine gave him a frown of confusion. "Don't we do that every night?"

Exactly. Just like any other night.

The first portion of the shift went as well as anyone could have hoped, beginning like any other night, taking his job very seriously but still goofing around with Jasmine. Their first cases had been relatively straight forward, and both had recently returned to the back nurses' station to type up their separate notes when Oakes appeared abruptly at the corner leading to triage. His young, but lined face was alight in both urgency and thrill, the way it typically did in the midst of a true emergency.

Without preamble, Severus stood up, immediately alert while Jasmine half-rose from her seat, glancing between the two doctors for only a second before both took off.

"No info on the kid yet but he just stumbled into intake screaming, then collapsed unresponsive," Oakes was saying as he and Severus walked quickly toward the heavy, swinging doors into the emergency room waiting and intake area. There was a small crowd of nurses around an unconscious young man on the floor toward the back of the room. "They're getting information and vital-"

"WHY do we not have a crash cart here right now?" Severus boomed as the doors swung shut behind him and the huddle of nurses scattered like bowling pins to find and bring the life-saving cart of emergency medical equipment to him. Vaguely, in some far back corner of his mind, he wondered whether Jasmine was a half-step behind him as usual, but he did not stop to look or wonder more deeply before he dropped to one knee beside the young man, stethoscope in his ears, hand on his chest.

The man was indeed very young, Severus noticed with a pang as he glanced up at his pale face, shining with sweat beneath the lights of the waiting room. He could barely be a day over twenty. A sickening lurch occurred somewhere near his navel, but he ignored it with ease as he pulled a penlight from the chest pocket of his scrubs and peeled back the kid's eyelids to check his pupillary reactions. However, with this motion, he felt another tug at his gut as he noticed one pupil was nearly double the size of the other, unresponsive and dilated.

Fuck.

"Get him back to triage now, start him on oxygen, tox screen panel-" he barked suddenly, rising from his position to immediately turn toward Oakes. Nurses had returned sometime during his initial exam of the unconscious boy and stood huddled around, watching on bated breath, ready to perform any task, no matter what, the second he instructed it. And accordingly, they all sprang into action like a well-oiled machine and within moments, the boy was on a stretcher, flying through the double doors into the main triage area. With a rush of relief, Severus caught a glimpse of a long, curly ponytail whipping out of sight before he turned to Oakes and they followed suit.

"He's anisocoric on the left," he began explaining in a lowered voice as they passed a few shocked, concerned-looking patients and families before disappearing through the heavy doors. "The pupil looks blown. He's tachycardic as well, sweating profusely…"

"What are you thinking?" Oakes asked, watching as the nurses swarmed around the boy, collecting samples, obtaining vital signs, hooking him up to equipment. "Drugs?"

Severus shrugged, scribbling a set of initials on a chart for a random nurse as she handed it to him. "If he came in screaming, it's a safe bet, but it's too soon to tel-"

At that moment, the very moment it transpired, that the needle made contact with his skin, the patient was suddenly screaming at the top of his voice once again. A flailing leg kicked out and knocked aside a rolling metal stand which clattered noisily to the ground while two nurses attempted to subdue him. Both Severus and Oakes rushed forward, Oakes to help the nurses restrain him into a set of leather straps, and Severus to the drug cabinet where he found a vial of Valium and a syringe.

However, upon returning to the bedside, where four nurses, including Jasmine, hung on tight and Oakes had both arms across him, Severus stopped short, his gaze transfixed on the young man's face.

He looked positively demonic.

The sclera of his eyes had flooded with blood, making his blue irises stand out like electricity was coursing through him. Every vein in his face, neck and chest bulged as though they could split free of his skin. His lips were swollen and cracked, his voice issuing between them as a shrill, piercing scream.

"DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ME!"

"Prince!"

"SEVERUS!"

Two familiar voices had shouted both of his names simultaneously, but he did not pause to attempt to distinguish who had yelled which. He rather thought Jasmine might have used his first name. No matter.

The moment the liquid medication hit his bloodstream, the patient sank back onto the bed, giving one great, heaving sigh of a breath, all fight gone from his body. He had been given a fairly heavy dose, so this came as no surprise to Severus, who turned to the nurses all rising from around the bed.

"Everyone out except Miss. Taylor," he said deeply, glancing at Jasmine quickly before waiting for the others to file out around them wordlessly. She watched him in return, her eyes wide with trepidation. He knew she was concerned that he was angry about her use of his first name in the presence of others at work, but at the moment, he was very far from concerned about that. It was Oakes who spoke next.

"What do you need?" he asked dutifully, moving away from the bed.

Severus took a deep breath, glancing down to place two fingers on the carotid artery pulse point; still too fast.

"Time," he replied, rubbing a hand over the short, new stubble on his jaw. "And my toxicology results. Has his family been notified?"

"Not sure," Oakes said promptly. "I'll find out about tox and if they've found any info on him."

"Alright, because I can't do any further treatment without cons-"

"I know, Prince," Oakes replied calmly, grinning a strained sort of thing. "Same job, remember?"

With that, he disappeared, and Severus rolled his eyes as he turned back to the bed. Any thought of anxiety over what he planned to tell Jasmine later was gone from his mind, his heart beating a steady, quiet rhythm inside his chest. What could possibly have caused this young man to react the way he was? Why were his pupils uneven? There was no sign of trauma to his skull or brain that would allow for such a phenomenon.

As he scowled down at the momentarily peaceful patient's face, lost in his tumbling thoughts, he noticed Jasmine shift slightly where she stood across from him. Severus was unsure whether or not he wanted to look at her. She was usually such an intense source of comfort for him during times like this, when his brain was stretched and the circumstances were dire. How often had he loved bouncing ideas off of her, hearing things absorbed through a different mind and regurgitated in a way that made him think differently. Similarly, when the case got intense, he could often read the suspected prognosis in her expressive clear eyes, regardless of his ideas and theories. He did not want to find that expression there. This kid was much too young to die, no matter what he had done to get himself this way.

Without looking up, Severus heard her soft voice speak to him through the dust his brain was kicking up running circles around itself. "What are you thinking?" she asked quietly.

He shrugged, glancing up at the ECG line on the monitor above the bed. "Aneurism? Stroke? Overdose?" he listed the things currently in his differential diagnosis list.

" _Stroke?"_ Jasmine asked, her voice still low, though tainted with the unmistakable stain of curiosity and slight horror.

"Let's hope not," Severus murmured.

Then, at that very moment, everything crumbled.

The ECG monitor began to ding as the patient's heart stopped completely, breathing ceased and he was suddenly dead, but not irreversibly so. Severus and Jasmine both sprang into action immediately, removing pillows from the bed to lower the man's head, parting his already torn shirt to access his chest. Jasmine left the bed momentarily to retrieve a rolling, metal cart bearing a cardiac defibrillator, paddles and transducer gel. But he did not acknowledge the presence of the machine yet.

A syringe of epinephrine sat nearby on the crash cart, and Severus retrieved it hastily, pushing the needle deep into the boy's vein to administer the medication. The heart gave a few beats in response, but the ringing of the monitor continued, loudly. Oakes was running toward them, papers and chart in hand, which he discarded in favor of grabbing both sliding curtains to pull them around the patient trying to die.

" _Come on…"_ Severus growled, reaching out for the paddles, sparing a glance at the boy's face while it drained steadily of what little color it had contained previously.

However, almost the moment he had picked up the defibrillator paddles, something happened that even he had not been expecting.

Blood, thick and dark red, deprived of oxygen, began issuing forth from every orifice in the young man's face. His eyes, nose, mouth, ears, all ran with blood, traveling in thick rivers down his cheeks toward his jaw, down the sides of his neck, over his lips; he was hemorrhaging. Jasmine let out a gasp of horror and foolishly pressed a gloved hand with a stack of gauze to his face.

No gauze nor even paddles would help him now.

Panic, unbidden and unasked for, coursed through his veins, and Severus knew it was no use, but still, he attempted CPR, using both of his large, interlocked hands across the patient's sternum, throwing his weight into it. Several of the boy's ribs cracked beneath the effort but he did not stop.

"Come _on!"_ he growled impatiently, black hair falling into his face with the motion of his chest compressions.

"Prince," said a voice near his shoulder.

 _Twenty-one…twenty-two…_

"Prince, come on, he's…"

 _Thirty-five…thirty-six…_

"Severus…"

This voice reached him the way the other had not.

At long last, he ceased his life-saving efforts and took a step back from the now bloody, lifeless body of this very young man, unable and unwilling to look at him. His eyes were closed but had swollen with the force of the blood in his brain, leaving him with a truly horrifying appearance, nothing the way movies and television shows portray recent death. Severus was winded and exhausted in a way that he had not felt in some time as he took a few more steps away from the bed where Jasmine stood, toward Oakes, who had brought the patient's official chart with him.

"God damnit," Severus growled, his voice somewhat rough with the effort of performing CPR and breathing a bit more heavily. "Time of death, twelve forty-nine AM. Has his family been located?" he continued on to ask, not sparing time for either Oakes nor Jasmine to make a comment or ask a question. His eyes caught sight of a nod in his periphery while he jotted notes in the dead boy's chart.

"Yeah, they just got here…" the younger doctor replied quietly. "Apparently they've been looking for him all night. He's been missing since yesterday afternoon."

Severus felt he could be sick. "Not anymore," he concluded curtly without looking up.

Another weight of sadness and misery broke through Severus' usually superior defenses to settle in his stomach like sickness, made infinitely worse when he noticed the patient's age; nineteen. Finally, chancing one glance back at the body, where Jasmine was silently and gently wiping blood away from the boy's face, discarding of each gauze pad carefully in the biohazard bin next to the bed. She did not have to do that…There were specific people for that pleasure. He glared at her profile for one moment before he turned to leave the exam room, unable to stand there for even a moment longer and stare down at the boy he had failed to save.

Oakes followed suit, sliding the curtain shut behind him, glancing over his shoulder, lowering his voice to be unheard by Jasmine in the space beyond. "You going to talk to the family?" he asked unnecessarily.

Severus forewent a 'duh' sort of expression and merely nodded, taking a few steps in the direction of the back nurses' station where he would retrieve his doctor's coat. "Yes, I'm going to see them now," he answered in that same clipped sort of tone he had taken to using over the past few minutes. "Send her home." He added this without glancing back, knowing Mark would know exactly to whom he was referring. "Don't let her refuse. Tell her it's an order. I'll speak to her later."

A vague, far-away tug at the bottom of his heart was nearly unrecognizable beneath the mountain of guilt and grief swirling about inside him like angry storm clouds. He would still have to talk to her about his feelings, but not that night…not after how abruptly and horrifyingly the teenager had died, not with how much he hated what he was about to experience in a room full of the boy's family…His topic of conversation was something that would like to be happy and maybe even possibly smiling for, not feeling as though his own ineptitude, however small, had caused the death of a young patient.

After applying his coat, checking his scrub front for obvious blood stains, Severus began to short walk to the private emergency waiting room, where the tension was so thick, he could practically feel it radiating through the door. They would have no idea yet, no idea that perhaps the youngest man of their family had passed away only minutes before; Dr. Prince had come to bring them that news personally.

He did not stop outside the door to breathe, he did not stop to close his eyes and collect himself. Instead, he allowed his emotions to fall away from him entirely, until all he could feel was a faint buzzing inside his pounding head. Completely without feeling; that was the only way he would be able to accomplish what he must do. The heavy door swung inward slowly on the room.

A small family of five had congregated there, clutching one another's hands, sitting huddled on one of the awkward, ugly couches while the only man in the room paced up and down. Two older women and two young were the only others in the room, sniffling quietly and mumbling what he thought must have been prayers. Severus swallowed once on his Adam's apple, his eyes locking firmly onto that of the man standing across from him.

Whatever strength he had put into controlling and hiding his true emotions had apparently been insufficient, as the man suddenly let out a wail at only the sight of the tall doctor's face, and collapsed to his knees on the grey and brown carpet. The noise of this was followed closely by a scream from whom he assumed was the mother, before she rose from the couch toward her husband.

"No!" she screamed, clutching the man's shoulders as he sobbed.

Severus swallowed again; this was much more difficult to witness than he had anticipated. He had of course given bad news before, but never so young and so terrible a loss, with so much family there. They looked like good people, nicely dressed in normal clothes, searching clothes, not bed clothes as he had grown accustomed to seeing in the emergency room at night. Perhaps their son was a little wayward and had gotten in over his head. Somewhere far away, he remembered asking for a toxicology screen on the boy, though he found he now cared very little about the results. He had to get away from there.

"I'm so sorry," he murmured, feeling positively indecent for intruding on the family's grief, memories of the boy's horrendous death playing on a loop, fresh in his mind's eye. He hoped his mother and father would never know how truly dramatic their son's death was to witness.

After leaving the room, Severus returned to the nurses' station where he found Oakes standing leaned against the counter behind the desk, eyes glazed over and unfocused as he stared off. He blinked and looked up at his entrance but did not say a word as the older doctor sat down and dialed an extension on the keypad of the phone.

"Grief counseling liaison to family room four for post-mortem coordination, please," he said quietly into the receiver before setting it back down on the desk. A heavy sigh escaped him as he leaned back, rubbing his hands along the legs of his scrub pants, feeling nauseous and queasy with how badly he wanted to be alone.

"Just head out for the night, Prince," Oakes said abruptly from somewhere near him. "It's already after one and it's quiet otherwise. You guys had a rough one."

Without pausing to even consider disagreeing, Severus stood up to leave the nurses' station, but paused when Oakes spoke again. "Oh, and the tox screen came back…if you'd like to see it…?"

It could not have been clearer that the younger doctor had been very cautious to mention this. Severus hesitated, glancing back at him.

"What's on it…" he growled, eyeing him suspiciously.

Oakes shrugged, a sympathetic smile on his stubbled face. "Methamphetamine, cocai-"

"Great."

And with that, Dr. Prince left, positively seething with fury and grief.

Of course he had been doing drugs. Of _course_ he had! Why did teenagers and young adults have to be so stupid? Didn't that kid know that drugs get cut with lethal ingredients all the time? If Severus had fur, his hackles would have been standing straight up, his wand buzzing in the waist band of his scrub pants as he stepped into the locker room, waving a hasty hand to lock the door magically behind him. He strode a few paces into the room, then doubled back as though torn between staying and going. His body was pulsating with rage unlike he had felt in quite a long time, since Potter had shown up demanding a half hour of time. The hand he had broken at that visit seemed to tingle in response to the adrenaline and anger welling up inside him like steam in a pressure cooker.

Without warning, his rage exploded from him with such force that he doubled where he stood, letting out a quiet groan of misery as the metal rows of lockers around him bent in half with a loud, metallic groan. Items within the lockers spilled from shelving and ledges, popping and cracking with the force of their containers bending in a way they were never designed to.

How unfair was this?!

All he had ever wanted for his night was to have a normal shift, as normal as one of his shifts could be, then talk to Jasmine into the earliest hours of the morning, perhaps watch the sun come up together, figure out what it is they felt for one another. But no. He had instead lost a patient to god only knew what, watched him bleed out in front of him, and still had absolutely no idea why. He assumed it had been a reaction to the drugs but who knew?! His opportunity to find out was gone, expired, dead.

His lungs ached with the force of his breathing as he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying everything he could to attempt to forget what he had seen happen, forget the expression he had witnessed befall the boy's father. It would be a very long time indeed before he forgot the sound of that cry and the scream of his mother as he had stood there in quiet sorrow, watching them deduce the news from only the expression on his face.

Which was another frustrating thing altogether; the father had known the outcome before Severus had even opened his mouth. Despite how much effort he had put into masking his emotions and wiping his eyes blank of all possible, readable expression, they had seen it and known the answer just as easily as if he had come in announcing it at the top of his voice. Perhaps he was not as adept at that particular skill as he used to be…He wondered why…

After spending nearly fifteen valuable minutes throwing himself a monumental pity party, a wave of almost nauseating exhaustion passed over him like an enchantment and at once, all he longed for was alcohol and his bed. Jasmine would have already gone home and that was just as well. All he wanted was to hug her and never let go, sorry beyond everything that so much had happened and he had been unable to talk to her, about anything at all…About how she was feeling, if she was alright. Figuring he would call her once he got home, he repaired everything he had destroyed in his temper and changed his clothes back into his normal ones.

However, after glancing at his reflection to make sure his tears had not left evidence of their presence around his black eyes, Severus left the locker room and turned the corner to the hallway leading to the garage, only to stop in his tracks. The hand bearing his stethoscope, ID badge and keys fell loose at his side, his stomach plummeting to his ankles.

Jasmine had not gone home yet. She was sitting at the end of the hallway, waiting for him.

She glanced up at the sound of his approach but hastily sniffed, rubbing her hands across her cheeks to wipe away trails of moisture he could not see until he had drawn closer. He sighed, hanging his head as she cleared her throat and looked up at him.

She did not attempt to smile and neither did he.

"What are you still doing here?" he asked in a flat voice, one that was raspy with residual strain from his emotions. He did not bother attempting to correct it. "I asked Oakes to-"

"I know you did," Jasmine interrupted, shaking her head as she stared down at her knees. "I just wanted to wait for you…Make sure you're okay and…tell you I'm sorry-"

Again, Severus sighed, finally meeting her eyes as she looked up at him. Her expression was so weary and mournful, so heavy and unlike her usual sunny smile. He had not seen her wear that smile all day and it was entirely his own fault. A tickle of frustration bubbled to the surface and for one moment, it was very tempting to shake her and tell her she has nothing to be sorry for _again_. Instead of this, however, he asked, "What could you possibly be sorry for, Jasmine?"

She shrugged, looking so very small and pitiful as one tear leaked free of her light brown lashes to splash heavily on the denim of her jeans while she remained seated on the bench before him. A soft sob caused her shoulders to heave once.

"Because he died!" she exclaimed in her strained, quiet voice. "We stood there and… _I_ stood there and…he just…I could have-"

With a true growl of annoyance, Severus finally gave up pretending, gave up giving her verbal affirmations, gave up reminding her that she could do virtually no wrong in his eyes. The stethoscope, keys and badge in his grasp met the bench beside Jasmine with a clatter, before his now empty hands reached for her upper arms and took a firm hold. In one gentle, swift motion, he pulled her to her feet, spared her wide blue eyes a single glance and pressed his lips deeply to hers.

It was heaven.

Her lips melted against his in immediate response, hands seeking the front of his shirt, which she grasped in her fingers while he pulled her even closer, tilting his head slightly to deepen their kiss and accommodate for the difference in their heights. Jasmine was not on her toes but he did not mind leaning. His grip on her arms had been soft yet firm, commanding, demanding as he held her close to him, but he let go after a few moments, his hands parting ways to snake around her waist to the small of her back. The other traveled up into the back of her hair, cradling her head with his long fingers and strong palm, holding her against him as their lips moved silently, delicately against each other.

As hard as Severus tried to memorize this moment, capture it so thoroughly in his memory that he could call upon it whenever he would like to, his mind was completely blank, nothing but a dull, fuzzy static. He could not comprehend or summon the mental capacity to revel in how soft and plush her lips felt against his curved thinner ones, how her whole body seemed to thrum with that beautiful, gentle energy of hers, clouded by the sadness she felt at the moment. Her air conditioning-chilled cheek was cold and damp with tears against his nose as he kissed her, and something in this propelled his mind into the present. It had been hovering somewhere outside his body, merely observing, a simple passenger on this unexpected ride he had created for himself.

It was then that reality crashed down around him, and with a jolt, he realized that he had just pulled his best friend from the bench with force and kissed her through her grief, without even a single thought to whether she would like for him to do that or not. He pulled away from her mouth slowly, gently, his eyes still closed as he moved his hand slightly to brush a thumb across her moistened bottom lip.

"You were brilliant tonight," he whispered deeply, finding himself barely capable of drawing breath, let alone speaking. "Don't ever let me hear you doubt yourself again."

And with that, he strode away, refusing to open his eyes until he had turned from her in a smooth motion, unwilling to let himself see her reaction. If she was horrified, he would rather not see it just yet. At least not until he had a whole hell of a lot more alcohol in his presence.

Without another word, after retrieving his abandoned stethoscope and things from the bench, he continued on his way to the parking garage, leaving Jasmine behind in a stunned, open-mouth silence. Maybe they could talk tomorrow.

…..

A/N: AHHHH! IT'S ABOUT TIME!

LEMME KNOW WHAT YOU GUYS THINK!

-QoM


	22. Finally

It stood as a testament to the level of exhaustion he was experiencing that Severus could not remember much from his drive home. His mind had gone completely dark, shut off, done for the night, though a vague, far-away sense of panic seemed to fester in the back of it, waiting for him to acknowledge its presence. He had not done so yet.

As he stepped into his apartment, barely taking notice of his surroundings, he dropped his keys noisily onto the table, allowing himself a random moment of clarity to wonder why he even bothered with the things if he was capable of unlocking anything with a pass of his hand. Knots of tension had grown to existence within the muscles along his shoulders and into his arms, tight and wound up like springs with how he had carried himself most of the night. His whole body seemed to unravel somewhat as he stepped out of his clothes in his bedroom, a groan following his jeans as he kicked them off sloppily and flung them into his closet with his foot. He could deal with trivial tripe like laundry another time. A pair of wonderfully soft, long, black cotton pants replaced the denim, but he forewent the application of a shirt in favor of the kitchen.

For now, he needed a drink.

Severus was not sure how he had not seen it coming, but the moment he sat down on his couch, the moment he stopped moving, the moment he took a sip, overwhelming reality crashed down upon him like the monstrous waves off the coast of California.

He kissed her.

It was as though in his haze of grief and guilt, he had forgotten the very end of his work shift, though for the life of him, he could not understand how. It was a hazy memory at best, which was unfortunate, seeing how normally, Severus could go back through his memories with crystal clear accuracy, as though watching his past on a movie screen. However, this one was not the same. He could remember the feel of her lips against his, returning his kiss, but…had that really been what he had felt?

With a heavy sigh, he let his head come to rest on the back of the couch, waving one hand lazily to light a fire in the grate. It began crackling at once, emitting a warm, orangey glow throughout the room but giving off no heat owing to the C1ooling Charm Severus had set upon it. His eyes opened slowly to stare fixedly but dazedly at the ceiling far over his head, insides burning as sudden, unbidden flashes of memory flew through his mind's eye as through on a reel of film.

The boy was screaming, thrashing, then still.

Within ten minutes, he would be dead, exsanguinating, thick gluttonous blood leaking from every hole leading to the outside of his body. Severus had only witnessed the phenomenon once before in his life and wished to never have the pleasure again as long as he lived. And he was so _young_. At some point in his life, he supposed he would have found the sight of such a death interesting or fascinating to observe, but everything in him now was horrified. His eyes shut again as his brain took it out of him, forcing him to relive the echoed shouts of a grief-stricken mother and father as they screamed and clutched one another at the sight of him.

' _I'm so sorry,'_ he had said.

What a fucking pitiful excuse for condolences from the man who had just witnessed the nightmarish death of their son, perhaps the last male in their family behind the father. He would have been better to express to them how he could not imagine their loss, that he had been unable to save their boy likely due to the toxic chemicals in his blood, that he had not been given the chance to properly try anything…He just… _died._

With another deep groan of frustration and mourning, Severus leaned forward on the couch, resting his elbows on his knees, his tumbler of whiskey meeting the coffee table before him.

What in the living hell was he supposed to tell Jasmine? HM?

He'd really done it this time, hauling off and kissing her like that, without expressing his feelings, without the opportunity to do so, while she was so upset, crushed and looking so beautiful despite all of it. And he had left! Just left her standing there, likely looking as though she had just been struck by a heavy object. He would not know…he had not stayed around long enough to find out. Instead, he had fled, too exhausted to honestly care whether she looked revolted or not but still unwilling to check. There was a really good chance she would say something about it the next time he saw her…If there _was_ a next time.

Severus heard Brazil was nice for people on the run.

No, he would have to see it through. He had told her that he wanted to talk to her anyway, before the start of the maddest shift they had experienced in a while. Fortunately, Jasmine was quick on the uptake most of the time; Severus had a feeling she might connect his request to talk after work with his abrupt and totally uncalled for ki-

 _BZZ-BZZ…BZZ-BZZ…_

Severus' heart did a sort of convulsion as the sound of a vibrating cell phone reached his ears from the cluttered dining table where he had set down his keys earlier. Black eyes narrowed on it from where he sat; it could not be Oakes. There was no way he would text him now, after witnessing the night he had experienced, after offering him to go home. He would sooner call McCann in early than disturb Severus now, surely. So…

Raising his hand and focusing hastily, the phone zoomed toward him and met his open palm with a quiet slap before the screen woke.

' _1 Text Message from: Jasmine'_

" _You awake?"_

Despite his anxiety from moments before, Severus felt a small smirk approach his lips, curving them slightly as the worry he had experienced seemed to drift away at only the imagined thought of her voice through text. He typed a response.

" _Yes."_

It sent, he set his phone down, reached for his glass to take a sip before-

 _Knock-knock-knock…_

His eyes darted up from the top of his whiskey to the inside of his front door, stomach plummeting to his feet.

Oh.

There's that anxiety.

Rising a bit too quickly with the new liquor on an empty stomach, Severus had to side-step the coffee table but was to the door in a few long strides, pulling it open without checking to see who it was. The look on his face must have first come across as somewhat formidable as Jasmine appeared on the other side but seemed to shrink under his gaze as he looked down at her. A pitiful little hiccup bounced her shoulders.

Severus' expression did not stay impassive for long; it melted only a moment later into a look of mildly amused exasperation at her tendency to follow him home. He shook his head, resting the side of it on the door he still held open at the threshold to his apartment.

"Whatare you doing here?" he asked plainly, his tone matching his face in blankness, though he attempted to make it clear that he was not ungrateful she had come.

Across from him, Jasmine clutched the strap of her messenger bag across her middle, glancing up and down the four in the morning, empty hallways leading to and from his doorway. Her petite, delicate shoulders rose and fell in a heavy shrug.

"I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep," she admitted, shaking her head gravely. "And…I wanted to make sure you were alright."

When she eventually looked up at him again, Severus noticed her eyes dart downward to his chest and back up again twice. So transfixed was he by her sudden appearance, he had completely forgotten that he had foregone a shirt in his haste to sit and overthink. His brain stalled once again, his jaw slightly slack as he stared at her. She fixed him with a weary, watery smile before she motioned toward the inside of the apartment behind him and the inviting flickering glow of the fireplace.

"Can…I come in?" she asked hesitantly, as though the look on his face was making it very difficult to determine whether or not that was something he wanted. But it was exactly what he wanted.

Mental gears chugging back into place for the time being, Severus nodded and took a step back from the doorway, holding it open wide enough for her to step past him and into his personal living space. He shut it behind her but did not stay long enough to watch before escaping to his bedroom to both grab a gray shirt from a drawer and his wand from the top of the dresser.

On his way back down the hall, he gave the newly acquired wand in his hand a flick and another clean glass burst from one of the cupboards in the kitchen to glide toward him. As he moved to take it from the air, however, he caught sight of Jasmine, now sitting on his couch looking leagues more comfortable than before, likely due to the heavy measure of rich whiskey she had just drained from his unattended glass. Despite the heaviness of her reason for being there, Severus could not help but grunt a laugh and drop down onto the couch opposite her, feeling much less awkward now that he was at least clothed.

"I intended to drink that," he stated quietly, but with just enough of a bounce to his tone to indicate that he was not annoyed with her for it but merely attempting to lighten the tension.

Fortunately, Jasmine seemed to catch on, and sniffed a bit haughtily, setting the glass back down on the wooden coffee table. "Good thing there's more," she replied smartly, nodding her head toward the kitchen where the entire bottle was zooming steadily toward Severus' outstretched hand.

He did not reply but instead poured a healthy measure into the clean glass, another smaller amount into the glass she had claimed, before setting the bottle back down. The gentle thud of heavy glass against wood was like the crack of a whip or a gunshot in the silence that rang afterward, and instantly, Severus felt a pang, a small tug toward wishing he was alone. Yet he did not. Jasmine was there, sitting across from him, looking angelic and soft in the firelight, sad but mournfully beautiful at the same time, her almond, sphynx-like eyes heavy and slightly swollen with her earlier tears. He stared at the delicate, feminine profile of her face for a few moments before following her gaze to the fire, where he focused quickly and turned the flames to a dazzling, turquoise, orange and purple blaze; her favorite combination of colors. The corner of her lips lifted ever so slightly, shoulders rising and falling in a quiet sigh.

It was a stupid question, he knew it was, but at the moment, he was completely lost for anything else to say.

"What's the matter?"

 _Really_ stupid question.

She blinked, more heavy tears gathering along her lower lids as she finally turned her head to look at him. "We lost a patient tonight, Sev," she said rather bluntly. "He _died_. You can't act like it didn't affect-"

"I'm not," he interrupted, unwilling to let her finish that sentence. "You know better than anyone that I am not apart from what happened," he corrected, giving her a stern look that made her blush and turn her eyes back to the fire. "Quite the opposite, in fact."

A moment of silence descended where Jasmine would not look at him for the tears now gliding slowly down her cheeks and Severus felt a bit badly for interrupting. He spoke again a few seconds later, lowering his voice to something gentler.

"Jasmine, he died," he stated simply. "It was so sudden and…abrupt that there was nothing to have been done for it. You were there, you saw what happened."

When she finally turned her weepy eyes to him, he met her gaze, giving a sympathetic sort of smirk with a shake of his head. "Sometimes people just die," he said. "You know that as well as I do."

At the other end of the couch, Jasmine, who had just reached out for the glass of whiskey, stopped short, perhaps thinking better of it and instead shook her head. "It's just so unfair," she said quietly. "He was so young."

Severus took a deep breath, images of so many young dead people swimming in his mind's eye…and he had not even been present for the end of the battle. How many more had perished fighting against whom they assumed was he and the Dark Lord. With a quick shake of his head, he flung these thoughts away, forcing himself back to the present, where Jasmine sat hiccupping, now boldly clutching the amber liquid he knew she disliked but pretended to enjoy for his sake. His thumb twitched against the worn handle of his wand.

He took a deep breath before speaking, knowing it was very important for him to word his thoughts carefully.

"I know you're pointedly against the altering of memories," he began cautiously, casting her an anxious half glance from where he sat tracing the carvings in the ebony wood. It was true; when she had learned it was possible for wizards to do such a thing, she had been thoroughly disgruntled, declaring that people are entitled to their memories, however bad, as they were a huge portion of what makes people who they are. She was not wrong, but some things were best forgotten.

"But, if you wanted-" he continued, a bit more boldly when she did not immediately shut down the idea. "I could make it so that you would not remember what happened tonight."

For a moment, to his surprise, Jasmine appeared interested, perhaps a bit tempted by the idea, as Severus was betting that she, like he, could not get the mental image of the young man bleeding from of every hole in his body out of her mind. She hesitated but then turned to look at him fully, bringing one leg up to sit sideways on the couch facing him. Her eyes were huge, nervous and yet so intrigued.

"Does it hurt?" she asked quietly, in a voice very near to reverence as her eyes dropped down to the powerful magical instrument in his hand and back up to his face.

Severus shrugged, feeling a bit of heat creep up his neck. He had not performed any strong magic on Jasmine thus far but now seemed as good a time as ever. "Not that I'm aware of," he replied, putting a bit more strength into his voice than usual. Why was he suddenly so nervous again? "Most people just get a blank look on their faces for a bit, then go about their business as usual."

It was not a very convincing argument in Severus' opinion, but apparently Jasmine had not needed much. She inched a bit closer to him, quickly taking one last swig of whiskey on her way toward his end of the couch. Something unexpected, unwelcome at this moment and likely owed to the alcohol rose up in Severus as she approached him, and at that moment, he knew he had to speak. He had to say something, or he felt he might always regret it. It meant starting over and he was not sure he would ever fall into another emotional pit deep enough for it again.

"I must warn you," he said abruptly, watching as she hesitated a foot or two away from him. "If you allow me to do this, you won't remember anything that happened afterward until this point."

He did not want her to forget his kiss. Not yet. If she proceeded and asked him to do it…what then?

At that moment, he felt something deep in his gut shift as Jasmine hesitated, paused for several, painstaking moments before eventually shifting away from him, blushing deeply between her curtains of unleashed, wild curls.

And then it got awkward.

Severus had not counted on needing something witty or smart to say after bringing all of the attention in the apartment to the fact that he had kissed her less than two hours ago, and here she was, sitting so close to him. When where they supposed to talk about that? Certainly not right now!

Feeling that the conversation could continue in the morning, or the afternoon was looking more likely, Severus stood up, distracting himself and Jasmine by cracking his back gratuitously. As his spine popped and grinded, he could not help but smirk when she winced, sparing a good, classic Jasmine-glare at him. Both glasses of liquor were empty and Severus took them to the kitchen by hand, eager to avoid looking directly at her face as he launched his idea.

"You're er-…" He paused at the kitchen sink, cringing into the darkness as he hesitated. No. Do it. Don't be a puss- "You're welcome to stay here tonight if you feel that would help you to sleep better."

He stepped out into the small hallway leading from kitchen to living room, where Jasmine was once again immersed in staring at the flickering, colorful fire. Her eyes snapped up to him as he said this but she played her surprise off very well by sniffling. Broad shoulders rose and drop as he leaned wearily against the doorway.

"I assure you I have the most comfortable bed in the world," he continued, attempting to lighten the tension once again, but at this choice of word, Jasmine's crimson blush deepened even further, her arched eyebrows rising. Severus rolled his eyes. "Don't be a child," he chastised. "I'm not unaccustomed to sleeping on that couch. Now, come. Bed."

Whiskey was perhaps the more powerfully magical thing in the room in terms of giving him an air of confidence he did not at all feel he deserved.

With a jerk of his head, he turned away from her and moved back down the hallway, slowing his pace subtly so that Jasmine would stay right behind him and not go wandering off. The difference in their heights felt exaggerated for a moment as they passed through the hallway toward the open door to his bedroom; she seemed tiny in his wake. Halfway down however, Jasmine hesitated at the door to the technical 'second bedroom', which was closed, magically sealed, but inconspicuously so. Severus continued a few steps but paused and turned to face her, eyebrows arched expectantly. Jasmine pointed at the door, confused.

"Isn't this a spare bedroom?" she asked, looking far up at him as he gave a quiet chuckle.

"Nope," he answered plainly, turning away from her to continue down the hall. "Secret magic lab, actually. You can stay in here."

There was a moment of silence behind him before Jasmine spoke.

"A _what?_ " she asked again, her tone torn between exasperation and awe.

Severus grunted another weary laugh as he stepped into his bedroom and moved to the bed to turn it down… Not that he had made it up to begin with. The lamp beside the bed flicked on without being asked.

"It's a lab," he repeated, smirking as she appeared in the doorway to his bedroom. "I can show you when you wake if you'd like."

Again, his brain attempted to shut down on him as he took in the simple sight of her standing there in his most private of personal spaces, a place where no other person had ever been. And she looked as though she belonged there. But her jeans were likely tight and restrictive and Severus was just rather sloppily wondering what she might do about that when she glanced at the entrance to his bathroom behind her, clearly feeling unsure. With another stroke of grace and calm he did not feel entitled to, he rolled his eyes.

"I'll get you something to sleep in," he stated. "What would you like?"

Jasmine positively beamed at him, perhaps relieved she did not have to attempt to sleep in his long pajama pants.

"Any pair of shorts in my dresser, the second drawer down," she explained, before taking a few confident steps toward his bed to sit down on the edge of it and wait. "Thank you."

With a crisp _crack_ , Severus was gone, Apparating directly into her apartment, through his own protective anti-Apparition jinxes he had set upon the entire building months ago. He gave a weird wobble on landing as he slipped past the strong enchantments but within a few moments, he was to her bedroom and pulling a handful of things from inside the dresser drawer she had indicated.

Before leaving once more, he cast a rather haughty, triumphant look around her bedroom, feeling a strange sense of pride that she had not wanted to be alone in her own place and had instead come straight to him. Of course, she had stated that she wanted to check on him, but Severus knew she felt a sense of comfort around him, perhaps felt a bit protected and looked after. He understood this to be true because he felt something of the same toward her; he could not have been more pleased that she had shown up on his doorstep seeking comfort versus any other number of possibilities.

Another _crack_ accompanied his reappearance, but Jasmine did not flinch at the sound as she used to, but instead smiled wearily up at him and accepted the small bundle of clothes he offered her. With a quite snort of a laugh, she glanced down at the jumble of fabric in her hands before rising from the edge of his bed.

"Did ya just grab a handful and run?" she asked with a hint of her usual sass, turning her back on him to retreat into his bathroom and shut the door behind her.

"Yes, I did," he replied smartly, moving to sit on his bed but thinking better of it at the last moment. If he were to lie down right now, he would be asleep by the time Jasmine changed. He had to stay awake to at least make it to the couch.

Within a few moments, she was reemerging, changed into one of the pair of shorts he had brought from her place, her hair still down and wild, framing her face and the now bare shoulders she had exposed by removing her t-shirt. She still wore a tank top of course but it was still less than he had been expecting her to wear as she came out of his bathroom. It was nothing obscene, nothing that he had not seen before from her, but all the same…His breath hitched in his chest, but he cleared his throat with a quiet cough to disguise it.

How was he supposed to talk to her the following day about his feelings again?

As Jasmine passed him on her way to the bed, she gave a sleepy smile, turning her head to look up at him as she sat down. "Thank you so much," she said quietly. "I know it's really silly of me and…I know that-"

At this, Severus felt his stomach plummet to his feet and without thinking to stop himself, he shook his head, interrupting her.

"Don't-" he began, pausing while Jasmine shut her mouth, blushing deeply. He continued, plowing ahead, aching for the awkwardness to stop. "-don't mention it," he finished lamely, dropping the blankets over her side as she finally scooted down into the comfortable, soft bed. He watched enviously for a moment, wishing beyond anything he had not suggested he sleep on the couch. How nice would it have been to curl up in his own bed across from her? An admittedly false smile of content met his lips and curved them as he gazed down at her in his bed for only the instant he would allow himself. "Sleep well. I'll be in the other room if-"

As he moved to turn away toward the door to the hallway, saying his good night as he went, he felt a chill slide over his shoulders, chest and arms as her sweet voice took the chance to interrupt him.

"It's your bed! You really don't have to sleep on the…" She paused when Severus stopped in the doorway, his hand pressed pointlessly over the light switch, as though he ever used it.

At this, he inhaled a deep breath in through his nose, his guts twisting upon themselves as he imagined what sort of reply he could give to her statement. There was no way he could outright verbally say that, actually, yes, he _did_ have to sleep on the couch, that as much as he wanted to sleep next to her in his own bed, he could not allow it for himself.

As he turned to look back at her, sitting there, hands in her lap over his fluffy white comforter, there was an immediate change in her expression that Severus could only take to mean his unspoken words had come across. She had not stopped blushing since she had entered his room but shook her head boldly with a roll of her eyes, moving to the side and patting the space she had previously occupied.

"Seriously, just stay," she encouraged, unable to make eye contact with him but otherwise telling him loudly in not so many words that he was being ridiculous. "Please?"

He could very, _very_ rarely say no to her.

It was true that Jasmine had come there seeking the comfort of his presence, he knew that well about her by then, that she would rather not be seen seeking help from others but be seen helping or comforting others. He knew that routine for himself of late as well. It was also true that he could simply lay there until she fell asleep before moving to the couch for a deeper, less anxious sleep; it was not as though she would need him there past that point anyway. Perhaps once her breathing deepened, he could slip out, cast _Muffliato_ on the room.

"Alright," he grunted, moving back toward the bed while Jasmine's whole visage brightened by five shades. "But once I'm awake, you are _out_ of here," he added in a low grumble as he turned onto his back with one hand rested across his middle and the other folded beneath his pillow. Jasmine gave a quiet, exhausted giggle from somewhere amidst the mound of fluffy sheets and comforter beside him.

The light clicked out, plunging the room into absolute pitch darkness and silence fell.

After a few moments, her soft voice once more…

"Sev?"

Another pause while he took a moment to grin to himself in the black.

"Yes, sorry…"

Tiny, speckly blue lights appeared on the ceiling far above the bed, bouncing about slowly like so many moving stars.

A quiet, final hum of sleepiness.

"Thanks…"

And Severus knew no more.

….

Soft, white mounds of fabric appeared fuzzily before Jasmine's eyes as they opened on a darkened bedroom, and for a moment or two, her sleep deprived brain struggled to remember how she had come to be lying there. She was not scared or fearful, not worried that she had somehow made some terrible mistake and ended up in the bed of a stranger; she could not imagine living a life where that might even be a possibility. No, she was perfectly at ease, comfortable, safe and in her best friend's bed.

An excited tingle dulled by lack of sufficient rest stirred her spine and legs, which she stretched beneath the blankets, adoring the way his sheets felt against her skin. She knew that somewhere across from her, somewhere on the other side of the blanket fortress she had built herself out of his bedding, Severus was likely still asleep and very deeply so. There was no way for her to check the time without moving too much and she found, the more she foggily thought about it, the less she cared. They did not have work for the next two days, though Severus would be on-call the following evening. The time did not matter in the slightest right then.

With a stretch of her back, Jasmine felt a miniature flood of hazy memories from what must have only been a few hours earlier, when she had asked him to stay, asked him blatantly to sleep in the bed with her, knowing…

He had kissed her.

How could she have been awake for these long few minutes without acknowledging it?!

Looking back, Jasmine could remember attempting to make it incredibly obvious the previous night that she felt the same and would not be asking him to lay down with her in his bed, nor likely be there in the first place if she did not. Yes, they were close friends, _best_ friends, but if he had not kissed her and made his feelings a little bit obvious by it, she would not have come to his place. But she wanted to spend all the time with him that they needed, take hours, days to figure out what they felt for each other, where they go next. Yes, she had taken his kiss as proof and yet…

Slowly, gently, Jasmine began moving mounds of comforter away from her shoulders where she lay on her side, having fallen asleep facing him. The rest of the room was so silent that every rustle of the linens seemed magnified and she fully expected to hear a sigh of awakening any second. And yet her heart pounded to be this close to him, near him while he slept soundly. It was a bold move to approach him now, in such a vulnerable state, she knew it was, especially when she herself had forgotten why she had woken up in his bed, but she could not stop now. If the sound of the blankets moving would not wake him, surely the banging of her heart would.

At last he was revealed to her, sleeping deeply on his side facing her, one arm still tucked beneath his pillow bracing his head, the other rested on the mattress between them, extended slightly toward her. His large, masculine hand lay balled into a loose fist, his long, spidery fingers curled inward to his palm. His hair had come down at some point and lay over his exposed shoulder where his sleeve had pushed up, a few wavy tendrils falling lightly across the angle of his neck, blending in with the gray shirt he wore. Jasmine's heart was positively racing, just as it had done all those months before when she had caught him sleeping in the doctors' lounge. So, _so_ much had happened since then, so many fun adventures, learning who he really was, what he could do, sharing more about their pasts. A soft, silly smile broke her sleepy expression as she watched his handsome features at rest.

With a streak of boldness, Jasmine carefully pulled herself toward him by only a few inches, watching his eyes the whole while, listening to his deep, even breathing for any changes. She knew he was a hard sleeper and could likely stay this way for another several hours but that did not mean the feeling of another person moving so close to him would not wake him immediately and perhaps literally send sparks flying. Once close enough, she reached out, inhaling a deep breath and wrapping both of her hands around his extended right one. Her lips followed suit, pressing a light kiss to the knuckle of his pointer finger. Just so he would know it was her if he woke.

Also, at this point, it was all or nothing. Either he rejected her, or he did not.

Across from her, less than half a foot from her face, Severus took a deep breath in through his nose, stirring lightly, a deep groan rumbling in his chest. A massive smile split Jasmine's face as she watched him scowl, barely conscious, his fingers tightening their slackened grip on hers. The muscles across his shoulders and down his arms tensed visibly with the motion of a suppressed stretch, but she was much more focused on watching his eyes open, anxiously awaiting the parting of the black lashes reveal the deep brown color behind them.

The longer she waited, however, the more relief Jasmine felt that perhaps she had not woken him completely and that he might continue to sleep on while she got better control of herself and thought better of this. Would she be better to wait until they were not laying in the same bed inches apart before speaking to him about her feelings, or more obvious, _acting_ on them?

No, she had given herself plenty of time. So many occasions she had let simply slip by without confessing or making a more blatant move to secure something past friendship with him. And Severus had _kissed_ her the previous night, his lips so soft and yet commanding against hers, his body warm and buzzing with emotion from such a dramatic case, all of his grief and torment poured into the unexpected affection he had shown her.

She wanted to kiss him back. Properly.

However, just as Jasmine had been about to kiss his fingers again, Severus stirred once more, rotating his wrist ever so slightly to turn the back of her hand to his mouth. He kissed it lightly, curved lips lingering on her skin for one warm breath. Jasmine watched him do this, goosebumps cascading down over her body from beneath her hair, gaze focused on his lips as her lower belly gave a dull ache. God, she wanted him.

His lips remained near her hand for several moments as his breathing evened out again, grew deeper but somewhat intentionally so. He was not breathing naturally as he had done while sleeping but instead inhaled through his nose subtly and out through his mouth, just as covertly against their intertwined hands between them. Against herself and despite how badly she wished to continue watching him, she shut her eyes, hoping he could not hear how loudly her heart was pounding. But all else in the room was silent, not even the fan made a noise. Every few long moments, Severus' lips would purse against her fingers again, leaving another kiss, each time surprising her and bringing about a fresh, girly grin. Their foreheads met as Severus lowered their hands, the tips of their noses brushing as both relaxed into the pillows, sleepy and beyond comfortable this close to one another.

Jasmine sighed dreamily, reveling in the way Severus' thumb had begun stroking the side of her hand, up and down lightly, showing her that he was still awake with her in the earliest morning half-darkness of his bedroom. Neither spoke. Neither wanted to; the silence was so complete and peaceful.

But as his fingers began to release their grip on hers, she felt a crushing blow begin to creep up on her, throwing her mind into overdrive, though only a moment later, his hand returned, this time meeting her back while his forearm draped heavily over her side. She could not help but grin again, very thankful that the light in his bedroom at whatever hour it was currently was still fairly minimal. She had just opened her eyes to assess the level of gradually lightening brightness when she came eyeball to eyeball with Severus.

His eyes had opened at some point over the past few moments and he watched her as she had done with him, observing her, waiting for her to meet his gaze. Which she did, hungrily. Without even attempting to stop herself, her eyes dropped to his lips, so tantalizingly close to hers, and he watched her do this from behind heavy, half-lidded eyes.

Without warning, as though they had planned it, lips met gently but tangled passionately between them. Jasmine could not suppress the whimper of relief that escaped her into his mouth at the contact. At last.

…..

As though he had been put on auto-pilot, Severus' hand moved from Jasmine's back, up the back of her neck to the back of her messy curls, his heart beating the inside of his ribcage with a fist-like thump. Long fingers cradled her head, holding her while their lips danced and flirted together, not daring to take things further yet, testing each other. It could not have been plainer that this was exactly what she had been hoping for in waking him with a kiss on his hand, which was exactly what was giving Severus the ability to do this; _knowing_ that she wanted him to but was perhaps too shy to admit it aloud…rather like himself. Her eyes were the most expressive he had seen. He could read her thoughts and feelings with very little effort, none of which had anything to do with Legilimency. And when she had looked at him just then, at his lips, she had as good as begged him.

Without warning, a tiny flick from Jasmine's tongue against his upper lip caused Severus to pull away ever so slightly, eyes still closed, his breathing already a bit ragged and hers the same. She wanted to taste him- badly. But would he be able to stop himself if he let her? If she allowed him to do the same?

He decided yes; they had already long since passed the time for second-guessing.

Severus had also already long since decided that Jasmine could ask the moon of him and he would figure out some way to get it down from there.

The hand holding her head brought her lips back to his, on which he lavished attention before accepting her tongue and tightening his grip on her hair as they played. Severus struggled to remain clear-headed enough to remember this the next time he wanted to call upon a memory. She tasted as good as he could have imagined, her full lips so warm and soft against his, puckering against his bottom lip, sucking it lightly before she pulled away. Severus let a staggered breath of air escape him slowly as he opened his eyes a tiny crack, only to watch as Jasmine licked the taste of him from her lips, with the very same tongue she had so recently used to explore his mouth. His cock gave such a violent throb that he had to put great effort into not cringing in discomfort and giving away his situation.

They had to stop.

Jasmine might have had the ability to stop herself and simply move on after being so thoroughly roused but _he_ certainly did not. His hands positively ached to touch more of her, all of her, expand his touch beyond the length of her spine, which he caressed lightly with the fingers from the arm draped over her side. Jasmine's grip had fallen to his chest, but not for long.

In an effort to slow himself, everything, the entire moment down, Severus had closed his eyes once more, rested his head in the pillow, purposely turning more of his face away from her, focusing his breathing to slow his heart rate. He had never meant for it to move that quickly, although…now that he thought about it, Jasmine coming over in the middle of the night _had_ been something of a dead giveaway…But…there was no way… _NO WAY_ did she come over there seeking comfort in _that_ sense…with him?

However, just as all of these insecurities began to flood back into the rational part of his brain, the part that had recently been shut down due to lack of sufficient blood flow, Jasmine zeroed in on him again. It started as the gentlest, sweetest of touches, the lightest thing against his skin. Her delicate, expert nursing fingers danced across his shoulder, pushing a length of his hair away to expose the curve of his neck and the neck of the stretched and slept-in t-shirt. Once more, Severus sighed comfortably against the pillow, relieved that she seemed to understand. She was good like that.

When her lips made contact with the sensitive, unprotected and unsuspecting skin along the curve of his neck, the deep, quiet groan that escaped him came as a surprise and encouragement to them both. Severus was relieved that Jasmine was not letting up and Jasmine seemingly relieved that he had not stopped her, as he felt her body relax fully once more against his own.

Her lips were soon swollen and moistened with the affection she was lavishing on his neck and Severus could not help but let a deep growl rumble forth from his chest as she parted them to nip lightly at his skin with her teeth. He allowed her to do it but could feel something old and familiar welling up inside him as his long fingers wrapped around her opposite hip, between her body and the bed, his long arm spanning her curved waist with ease. The motion pulled her much closer to him, closing most of the distance between their bodies, save for the natural curve of their own laps…for which Severus was heavily grateful at the moment.

Chests inches apart, Jasmine finally pulled away from where she had just finished planting a light, teasing row of kisses along his collarbone. She had needed to pull the collar of his shirt down in order to do this, which she seemed to find tedious. One of her hands had already begun exploring his chest and abdomen, feeling his warm skin pass beneath her touch, expanding and contracting as he breathed steadily, hardly able to contain himself, heart pounding.

They _still_ had to stop.

He had to take control of this if Jasmine wouldn't.

However, as her hand finally made it to the bottom edge of his shirt, past his navel, several things happened at the same time. Her warm fingers slid beneath the worn cotton of his shirt, tracing his skin and various scars and burns upon it, feeling vague muscles pass beneath them. Though only an instant later, Severus had used the arm around her waist to gently roll her from her side onto her back, allowing him to close in. The fingers at her hip curled around the curve of it, gripping her somewhat firmly, framing her hipbone.

Mm…He'd waited to do that for a long time. His dick throbbed painfully in response.

No, god damnit. This was not how it was supposed to start, not like this…

His lips sought hers once again, bracing himself on his elbow, propped somewhat on his side, his forearm rested above and beside her head. She was practically trembling beneath him, her hands palpably quivering as she touched his chest and played impatiently with the material of his shirt. It could not have been clearer that she wanted it off of him, but not yet. There was still time to stop.

Jasmine whined at the ceiling as he left her mouth to trail hot, breathless kisses along her neck, both suddenly feeling flushed as though the temperature in the apartment had been put on 'sub-tropics'. Her tank top but was nothing but a temporary obstacle, and though he did not attempt to move it yet, the thin straps made it quite unnecessary either way. He still had access to the beautiful clavicles he had noticed so many months prior. His lips parted and he treated her to much of the same treatment she had afforded him, nipping, biting and licking at her skin, responding to her sighs and quiet whimpers. He was coming apart at the seams and she had to know it. But still he could stop.

It would kill him. But he could.

How many times had he fantasized about what she might feel and sound like in his bed, responding to more than just kisses? Her soft voice echoing in the highest corners of the room while-…

A deep groan of frustration left his chest as he pulled away from the curve of her shoulder, resting his forehead there instead. His breath was ragged and hungry, matching Jasmine's. His hair had come down at some point in his sleep and was now falling every which way into his face as he stayed slightly propped above her. With painstaking effort, he took a deep, steadying breath, struggling to ignore the way Jasmine's hand had come to rest flat on the warmest center of his chest, over the small patch of dark hair there, beneath which sat his heart, pounding away.

"Jasmine…" he began, his voice hoarse and gravelly with lack of use. It was the first either had said since waking.

Before he could continue, she interrupted him, shaking her head with another stubborn whimper.

"No," she protested, seemingly in tune with his intention to stop. "Please don't-"

At these words, Severus' expression crumpled into a frown, a bit of clarity breaking through the heavy haze that had filled his oxygen-deprived brain. He leaned away from where he had rested against her neck, opening his eyes to gaze down at her. His heart did a sort of backflip; there she was, in his bed, with him.

Her eyes were full of every emotion he could put a name to quickly. Lust, happiness, desire were there in measure, but among them lingered fear…anxiety…why? His eyebrows arched as he glanced back and forth between her bright, shimmering blue irises. Was she afraid he was rejecting her? Did she think that because he had pulled away and seemed to be stalling that it meant he no longer wanted her?

The hand previously at her hip moved once more to her face, gently pushing a piece of her hair away, tucking it back before his sights fell once more to her lips. He kissed her again, using his tongue at once to trace the curve of her upper lip, pleading entrance to her mouth, which she granted immediately. Tongues met and tangled fiercely as Severus finally allowed Jasmine to pull upward on his shirt until it reached his shoulders. Only then did their lips part, and only long enough for him to remove the shirt hastily and toss it away from him, alternating sides to rest on his opposite elbow. Jasmine whimpered into his mouth as her hands raked over his bare shoulders and chest, feeling all manner of imperfections along his torso pass beneath her fingers. He struggled not to shiver, his hips rocking forward instinctively as the muscles along his back tensed and spasmed.

God, he wanted her. He _needed_ her. They had officially come too far.

Jasmine's patience, it seemed, had begun thinning as she whined again, her back arching up into his chest, one hand snaking into the back of his loose hair, the other guiding his own hand to the bottom edge of her shirt. He licked her lips, shaking his head as he pulled away from her mouth, completely breathless with lust.

"I won't be able to stop myself," he managed against her neck, exhaling heavily as her hips shifted ever so slightly beside his own.

With another little groan, Jasmine's fingers curled where they were, gripping his hair tightly in one hand, his forearm in the other. She squirmed beneath him, her shoulder rising to bring her lips level with his ear, where she kissed the skin below the lobe lightly.

"No one's asking you to stop," she purred, in what was a rather blatant attempt to seduce him into continuing.

It worked.

A sharp spasm shot across Severus' lower abdomen, his hips bucking in response to her tone, though he played it off by rocking against her and groaning quietly in frustration. In seconds, their lips had met once more, but only for a few heated moments before Severus pulled away again to allow her tank top to pass as he tugged it upward. His heart was ramming the inside of his ribcage now with indecent force as her gorgeous midriff and beautiful, feminine breast was revealed to him.

She was perfect.

It was true, he could have Vanished all of her clothes within an instant, but why rob himself of this chance to remove them himself, use his own hands to reveal her body, one bit at a time. He hummed deep in his chest as he gazed down over her, eyes half-lidded and heavy with hungry need. Jasmine blushed deeply beneath his dark eyes but did not attempt to hide herself from him, merely giggling as she watched him take in the sight of her. Her jaw dropped and her chest heaved in a few breathless gasps as Severus reached out only two fingers to brush against the curve of the side of her breast, his thumb gracing once across the small, tight nipple. She curved away from his touch, as though it was too much to handle.

 _Perfect._

His mouth sought the curve of her collarbones once more, fully intending to continue his lips' journey south, visit every inch of her skin, take the rest of her useless clothing from her as he went. But it seemed Jasmine had other plans as her hips suddenly ground upward and immediately found the target she had sought. A deep, instinctual, heavy groan rumbled from his chest as the curve of her thigh rubbed purposely, intentionally against the length of him, followed shortly by her hand. Her fingers wrapped around him through the thin cotton pajama pants and little bursts of light exploded to life in Severus' vision, his jaw dropping.

Out of immediate response, his fingers found her wrist and closed around it, but he did not attempt to move her hand away from him. Instead, he and Jasmine panted against one another, breathless as she gently tightened her grip, attempting to meet her fingers around the width of him and failing only just. His body responded to her in strength, throbbing in her palm as she held him there, only a thin piece of cotton between them.

Jasmine kissed him once again, relinquishing her grip at last, only to tuck the tips of two fingers into the lining of his cotton pants; she wanted more. Her body was trembling visibly against his, her chest heaving, and Severus took this moment to stall one more time, lowering his head to place one soft kiss against her stomach, a few inches from her bellybutton. His thumb traced her hipbone, his long fingers curling around to grip her ass, parting his lips to nip at her skin as she rocked in response. Her hand threaded itself into the back of his hair, which she finally closed in a vice-like grip out of frustration and impatience. Severus groaned in response, returning to her face, where he kissed her deeply, replacing his hand at the curve of her neck, cradling her head as tongues danced.

"Jasmine…"

He pulled away a few moments later, licking his lips, his eyes closed. Jasmine responded by gripping his hips with her thighs and rocking her own hips toward him, whimpering. Somehow, in their heated tussle, he had maneuvered himself between her legs and was now propped above her, trembling with how badly it would kill him to stop now. It would kill him indeed, but he could do it if she changed her mind at that moment. He shook his head, cringing as he breathed raggedly against her neck.

However, before he could get any other words out, explain why he had stopped once more, Jasmine was suddenly sliding her fingers into the line of his cotton pajama pants and tugging impatiently.

A deep, rumbling growl escaped him as he rose onto his knees between her thighs and tucked eight fingers into the back lining of her shorts, which slid easily from her legs, revealing a pair of light blue panties, the triangle of which sat low across her hips. Her thighs were thick and muscular, quivering with anticipation and need as she allowed him to gaze over her, somewhat timidly reaching out a finger to trace the lacy lining. He exhaled, blinking heavily and pulling his hand away from her to push a bit of his loose hair away from his face. He could not wait any longer or he might not make it at all.

Jasmine took the moment while he was distracted to rid him of his pants as well, kissing the curve of his neck above her while she did so, her hands trembling so violently, she could barely keep hold of the material.

Lips met once more as Severus kissed her and she returned it with a moan into his mouth, her hands gliding up his arms to his broad shoulders. He touched the edge of her underwear, tracing it lightly, pulling it away from her body and sliding his finger beneath. She was shaved, smooth as silk and goosebumps rose up on his skin in response to this revelation.

Only a moment later, Jasmine jerked away from his kiss to gasp in surprise when his fingers suddenly pushed past the soaked crotch of her panties to the soft, wet folds behind. Severus felt that tightening spasm across his abdomen again, which forced him to withdraw his fingers. It had been so very long…

Once more, Jasmine spoke, her voice clear and full of emotion as she clutched him close to her, her lips once again near the nape of his neck. She let out a gentle cry of hungry lust, her hips grinding against his.

"Severus…" she breathed. " _Please!"_

At this, his hips rocked forward and he pushed into her slowly, carefully, stretching her, filling her entirely. Both moaned in unison at the contact, Jasmine's spine arching away from the bed while Severus slid one arm beneath her, holding her close to him as sensations both old and new flooded his body to the point that it was nearly overwhelming. Her beautiful energy crashed over him, filling him from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, originating from the place where they were so intimately connected. Relief overtook him, pleasure, a strange sense of triumph, all of it swirled around in the blood thundering through his veins as he remained stationary inside her at first. He could not move yet and just as well; it seemed she was not ready for him to yet. Her strong inner walls clenched and quivered around him deep within her, her slick wetness leaking out around him as he waited. It was difficult not to tremble or begin pounding himself into her. He had never felt anything like her. He could not let it go too quickly but _damn,_ was it difficult not to.

Jasmine shoulders heaved with something akin to a sob and he held her close, swallowing hard. She was not crying, but instead wracked with pleasure, her tummy twitching and heaving as she adjusted to the feeling of him.

After a few moments, he turned his head to place a soft kiss on her temple.

"Are you alright?" he asked as quietly and gently as he could, gritting his teeth as her muscles gave another tight squeeze around him and his hips bucked in response as though encouraging him to get going.

She nodded, clutching him. "Yes, god, Sev-… _finally…"_

Finally, indeed.

His hips began to move, sliding his length out of her by a bit, back in, over and over, slowly, carefully, listening to her every sigh and whimper. She felt unbelievable to him, perfect and tight, wet and warm. Their breathing began to mingle, the rate matching as they grew breathless together. Severus looked down just in time to watch her tilt her head and arch her back, her beautiful breasts reaching toward the ceiling, before she opened her eyes to gaze up at him.

He groaned deeply, desperately in response, helpless to the way she looked at him, that tightening sensation stronger than ever as his hips bucked unrestrained.

There was so much emotion in her eyes, so many feelings flooding her body.

Her soul was spilling for him; she had wanted him, just as he had wanted her.

He moaned in earnest, shaking back a bit of hair from his face, throwing his hips against hers as chills ran up and down his spine, his skin erupting in gooseflesh.

Jasmine arched against him once more, crying out as she gripped his hips with her thighs, her toes pointed.

He was very near the edge now…it would not be much longer…

At this, he opened his eyes once more and found that Jasmine had done the same, watching him in the throes of his pleasure, seemingly unable to take her eyes off of him, and oddly, in direct contradiction to every other area of his life, Severus found he did not care.

She was so beautiful, so perfect, so wet and tight, he just couldn't-

Jasmine gasped and cried out as he kissed her once more, groaning deeply when he hastily withdrew from her and came heavily between their bodies, his release hot and thick against her tan skin. The muscles along his spine twitched and tensed with the overwhelmingly pleasurable sensation, his mind spinning with the sound of her whimpers just next to his ear, skin tingling like she had burnt him where her fingertips had dug into his back in the throes of their sex.

Without hesitation, without a moment to collect himself or even breathe, Severus Vanished the sticky fluid on her stomach, leaving her skin perfectly dry and clean and leaned down, pressing his lips to hers deeply. Jasmine responded, kissing him passionately in return, her hands cradling his head, fingers wound into his wild hair as their tongues danced wearily.

For a while, the only thing transpiring between them were soft kisses, quiet, satisfied sighs, gentle touches. Severus had settled onto his side next to her, a wave of exhaustion creeping over him that he could not remember feeling in quite some time. It seemed as though tension in every single one of his muscles had been released and as he lay there, naked and cool with Jasmine curled up beside him beneath the white sheets, he struggled to find one thing wrong in the world at that moment. She was so beautiful, so comfortable and content with the most peaceful, radiant grin on her face. He sighed once more as sleep rolled over him, pressing one final kiss to her forehead before they drifted back off to sleep the rest of the morning away.

Perhaps they could talk about their feelings later.

…

You guys!

I am sooooo sorry about the wait for this one! I had some really crazy things happen all at once in my personal life and it really took me for a spin! But I finally have my schedule back in order and have dedicated days to writing again. So phew, that was super annoying there for a minute!

Thank you sooo much for the reviews on the last chapter, I hope you all know how much I adore them! I hope you all LOVED this chapter! It was sooo much fun to write, obviously, as I have been as anxious for these two to get it on as you have! Maybe even more so, because I know what's coming up next! Haha! I hope so much that you all liked this one and feel free to leave me a review or a private message! Also check out the IG and Facebook for the story if you want to, I post updates and dumb stuff there sometimes!

So happy to back at writing! I've missed these two love-birds SO MUCH!

-QoM


	23. Understated

Strong, late morning sunshine greeted Jasmine's itchy, sleepy eyes upon opening them, intensified by the white mounds of comforter bundled around her. She inhaled deeply against the pillow beneath her head and hummed quietly, a silly, girly smile curving her lips. It was alright that she had not woken up next to him a second time, especially since the first experience had garnered such favorable results. A dull, pleasurable ache between the apex of her thighs seemed to throb in response to this thought as it flitted through her mind. She allowed her eyes to close again, rolling from her side onto her stomach, taking a deep breath in of Severus' scent from his pillow.

Earlier that morning, everything about it, had been a dream, the best possible thing that could have happened for them, in her opinion. She had wanted him for _so long_ , fallen so hard for him, wanted nothing more than to express all of it to him, but had been so afraid… Possibly he had felt the same all along? It was true that he had attempted to stop a few times, but Jasmine had not allowed him, knowing that his only reasons for doing so were noble and rather pointless since she was fall-down, flat-out crazy for him. If he had shown any genuine interest in ceasing, she would have done so immediately, of course, but it had not been very difficult at all to encourage him to keep going. She had wanted him, and he had wanted her, in equal measure.

What a _relief_ that was!

It was difficult not to giggle aloud as Jasmine's world blossomed with new possibilities, all made possible by the fact that they had finally been intimate, finally 'confessed' their feelings for each other. They had not used their words, but she was not complaining and there was a very good chance Severus was not either. However, this left an eventuality that she would still need to say something about how long she had wanted to be with him on a deeper level than friendship. Hell, she had already stated once to herself that she was falling in lo-

No.

Not that. Not yet.

Severus was one of the most private people she had ever known, keeping his own emotions very near and dear to his heart; he played everything extremely close to the vest so to speak. Jasmine felt that were she to jump that quickly into the L-word, it could startle him and backfire on her, sending the progress they had made spiraling in reverse. No, she would have to play it cool a bit longer. It was fortunate indeed, though, that they were already such close, best friends, so that if she let the L-word slip on accident, he would likely play it off or ignore it, not run for the hills.

The whole time this most private of conversations was raging inside her mind, the more aware Jasmine's senses became of her surroundings as her brain began to stir from its fog. Her ears picked up the distant, muffled sound of birds chirping outside the windows, traffic rumbling in a low roar several floors below, her olfactory nerves tingling as the scent of brewing coffee drifted into the bedroom through the cracked door. Her empty, grumbling stomach turned over as she imagined walking out into the living room or kitchen to find him standing there, looking handsome, beyond sexy in a post-coitus, masculine glow. Maybe she could walk up and wrap her arms around him without skipping a beat.

Maybe it would _not_ be the most awkward morning of her life.

The idea to stay in bed and let him come find her was tempting, but the smell of the coffee had triggered a hunger mechanism in her, signaling that if she did not eat soon, they would _both_ be sorry. Not to mention the fact that she felt as though she could, and needed to, drink an entire gallon of water in one go. She swallowed back an unsatisfying drop of anxiety instead and rolled twice to the edge of his massive bed. As she stood, her eyes dropped to a lump of gray fabric, discarded and abandoned in the midst of the jumbled sheets; his shirt from only a few hours previously…the shirt he had removed in order to let her run her hands over his body…She applied it hastily along with clean shorts he had brought from her place, and attempted to arrange her features into something other than a goofy grin before slowly edging the door open and peering around it.

The apartment was quiet, the smell of strong coffee intensifying as she ventured forth, eyeing the inconspicuous door to his 'secret lab' on her way. She still wanted to see that, but there were much more important matters at hand first. More fresh sunlight streamed through the balcony doors, across the living room and hallway leading to the kitchen, giving his apartment an entirely different look in the daytime. It was much lighter, not nearly as dark and ominous when the sun was up, his bookshelves less intimidating somehow. She felt another distracting tug toward them, having never finished her perusal, but as she turned the corner into the living room, her breath hitched in her chest, all thoughts of reading gone.

Severus was outside on the patio with his back to her, leaned forward slightly at the railing, a black mug of coffee rested on the surface before him, the steam of it joined by a thin trail of cigarette smoke from between his fingers. Her heart flung itself at the inside of her chest, begging her to take it closer to him, walk up behind him without hesitation and wrap her arms around his middle, press her cheek to his warm back. A summer breeze blew past the screenless patio, rustling a bit of his hair, which he had failed to put back, and it lay in messy, black waves between his broad shoulders, blending in with the dark t-shirt he had applied. Another clean pair of soft, cotton pants had replaced the ones from earlier and sat low about his hips. His weight shifted idly from one leg to the other, the muscles along his spine tensing and relaxing beneath the material with the motion. His head turned the opposite way, watching the traffic below from behind pensive, dark eyes.

Ah. Brooding.

It was tempting right then to turn away and dash back to his bedroom, perhaps take a quick shower, hide until he seemed more…approachable… But no! Why should she hide from him now? Less than four hours earlier, she had begged him to touch her, kiss her, make love to her. She had lay there spread bare for him and watched him admire her. Why should she go shy now? This was her best friend, the non-blood-related person she trusted more than anyone else…and she wanted to kiss him good morning.

Severus turned at the sound of the door sliding open slowly, squinting handsomely at her in the late morning sun, creating a smirk; whether it was a good smirk or a bad smirk, she was not sure yet. She supposed she should have taken another moment to come up with something clever and funny to say to break the immediate tension, but she had not and now silence reigned. Once she finally stepped outside fully and slid the door shut behind her, she turned to him, hands behind her back, clutching the handle as he watched her, his lips still curved into that charming yet difficult to read grin.

She could do nothing but smile at him, no matter what other option she may have had. She couldn't help it.

"Hi," she breathed, motionless, more than ten feet away from him, on opposite sides of the patio. Another warm breeze lumbered past, rustling her wild curls.

His smirk morphed beautifully to return a gentle, genuine smile.

"Hi," he replied, the bass in his voice deepened by how recently he must have woken.

She walked toward him, extending her arms to curl around his waist only once she had reached him and it was clear to her that he was accepting of the affection. He returned the embrace by linking his fingers together behind her back and closing his arms around her shoulders, holding her close to him. It was fortunate indeed that he had pulled her as close as he had, as he could not see the ridiculous grin that nearly split her face in half when his lips made contact with the very top of her head through her poofy curls.

"I didn't wake you?" he asked, and Jasmine suppressed another shiver as his voice dripped English accent and inflection, his chest rumbling against her cheek. It was one of the many things she had been excited for in coming to find him. The way he spoke was continuously attractive to her, no matter how 'used to it' she pretended to be.

She shook her head against his chest, closing her eyes as sunshine pelted the shaded patio around them and silence lay upon them again.

After a few long moments, it grew too warm to stand that close and Jasmine took a step back from him, struggling to tuck a crazy portion of curls away from her face. Severus looked away from her out over the city below, taking a long sip from his coffee. Unsure what else to say, Jasmine panicked, unwilling to let it get awkward that quickly, after so little interaction.

"Did you sleep well?" she asked quite needlessly, as evidenced by the look of polite incredulity that passed over Severus' features, his lips curving again. Her cheeks grew warm as she watched him take a deep pull from his cigarette and against her will, a giggle escaped her from behind the hands she had clamped in front of her mouth.

"I slept very well indeed," he grumbled on a thin stream of smoke, grinning as she looked away from him, struggling hard not to blush and failing miserably.

Within a few seconds, however, Severus was also grunting a laugh, a quiet, deep thing that caused him to lean forward once again on the railing, rubbing a few fingers across his forehead. He shook his head while Jasmine continued giggling, until at last, she burst into the most ridiculous chorus of laughter. She could not help it! It was just too funny, and she was just too happy, too relieved that he was not acting negatively toward her for whatever reason.

Despite this, Jasmine still felt she had to ask, while the mood was light, to prevent it from turning into a heavier conversation if put off or neglected. She could not allow herself to fall more deeply for him if there was any sort of unspoken feelings toward what had happened. As the laughter died down, she spoke again.

"I'm assuming you don't regret it then," she said quietly, squinting up at him in the light as he took a deep breath, focusing much too hard on flicking ash from the end of his cigarette. Her stomach plummeted to her ankles as the amused smile faded from his face and something altogether more serious gathered there.

Oh, no…

"Of course I don't regret it," he answered firmly, bringing his eyes back to hers, staring at her directly as he said it. She saw no dishonesty or hesitation there. "I'm just…surprised, I suppose."

He looked away again momentarily to flick the ember from the end of the spent cigarette, which he then Vanished with a quiet 'pop'. Jasmine watched him do this, feeling a tiny bit of tension release from the newly formed knot in her stomach.

"Surprised?" she questioned. "Why surprised?"

He shrugged, picking up his mug of coffee once more to turn from the patio railing toward the table and cushioned chairs across the porch from them. She watched him go, wishing he would not. Her stomach lurched like she had missed a step going downstairs; this was not how she had wanted this conversation to go.

Across from her, after another sip of his coffee, Severus shrugged again, angular shoulders rising and dropping as he focused his gaze on the slow spin of his hovering coffee mug, turning it lazily with the tips of his fingers. She so wished he would look at her.

"I just wasn't expecting it to happen so…" He hesitated, his eyes narrowing.

"Quickly?" Jasmine supplied after a few moments, when it seemed like even he was not sure what he was trying to say.

He looked up from the coffee mug to her face again.

"Yes," he concurred.

Jasmine felt a tiny smirk tug on the corners of her lips, and she folded her arms across her chest and the gray material of Severus' own shirt.

"Unexpectedly?" she supplied yet another word, her smirk growing as his rather stony expression began to break. One of his eyebrows quirked upward.

"That as well…"

" _Amazing?"_

As this word left her mouth in a very dramatic sort of way, she could not help but allow a silly giggle to slip past as well, watching as her best friend's eyes flashed at the insinuation. The floating mug thudded to the tabletop and sloshed rich, brown liquid over the edges. Fortunately, he grinned, looking much younger somehow as he linked his fingers between his knees.

"Yes," he agreed after a few more moments of hesitation.

Jasmine pounced on it.

"So, what is there to be unsure about?" she asked, shrugging petite shoulders and simultaneously feeling the bottom of his shirt tickle the topmost backs of her thighs. Ignoring this, she continued, "Seems to me like…I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong, I just…"

She paused to take a deep breath, struggling to ignore the way Severus had begun smirking that shitty grin he got when she was flustered and losing control of her train of thought.

"If it was a mistake, I mean…I don't see how. I thought-"

Now he was standing up, rising from the chair, abandoning his coffee, his snide smirk more intense than ever as she faltered under his tall gaze. He moved toward her, across the few steps between them. Her words really did fail her. When one of his hands moved to the side of her neck, beneath her hair, warm against her skin, she blanked out entirely and blurted, "You kissed me first."

If he had been at all surprised by her open, blunt accusation, he did not show it, but instead arched one eyebrow, grinning one of the most handsome things she had ever seen on his face. He nodded, moving his left hand to join its opposite at the curve of her neck.

"Yes, I did," he replied smartly, both of his thumbs moving to glide down the front of her neck and over her throat.

She swallowed in response, unable to stop her eyes from flickering downward to his lips and back up. "Are you gonna do it again?" she asked, much quieter, while Severus grunted a laugh.

"Yes, I am," he responded once more, very matter of factly before touching his lips to hers, cradling her head with both of his hands, tight curls parted by long fingers.

Jasmine positively melted into his kiss, her breath escaping her nose quietly against his cheek, mingled heavily with both relief and satisfaction. It would seem they were, and perhaps always had been, on the same page.

After a few long, exhilarating moments of reveling in the way Jasmine had greeted him, in the way she had once more sought _him_ out seeking affection, Severus had to pull away from her lips with a breathless laugh as her stomach gave an almighty growl between them. It was audible even over the din of the traffic below and Jasmine flushed heavily pink as she giggled, clutching her empty belly. The hands he had wound into her hair dropped to her delicate shoulders where he allowed his warm palms to rest.

"Hungry?" he asked needlessly but was otherwise too wildly mad about her at that moment to trust himself with something more clever.

As evidence of this, Jasmine's eyebrows contracted into a teasing arch, her own hands reaching out to rest on his narrow waist.

"Jeez, you must be a doctor or somethin'," she replied playfully, giggling again as he rolled his eyes.

"What would you like?" he asked, reluctantly releasing hold of her for the time being so they could walk back inside. "I don't have much here in the way of groceries, I'm afraid."

Jasmine turned to look at him with a shrug once she had made it to the hallway entrance. "Well…I _have_ been sort of meaning to make you buy me breakfast…" she began jokingly, her eyes alight with how deeply happy she was. It was infectious. " _Especially_ after what you did to me…"

When she continued, Severus felt his stomach lurch with excitement at just the quick, fleeting thought of _exactly_ what they had done only a few hours earlier. His eyebrows arched as he took a few steps toward her.

"What _I_ did?" he repeated with a nasty grin, pursuing her further as she bounced her way down his hallway away from him, toward his bedroom. "What about what _you_ did? Coming here in the dead of night looking _pitiful…"_

The moment these words left his mouth, Jasmine froze only a few feet onto the bedroom carpet, her eyes wide and suddenly dimmed slightly. He too came to a stop, his shoulders straightening and his empty, uncomfortable guts clenching as they both seemed to realize the same thing at the same time; why she had come there in the first place.

They had been so busy and excited to celebrate a newfound avenue to their relationship, the sharing of feelings and ideas long held from one another, that both had allowed the traumatic case at the hospital to fall to the very back of their minds. Whether this had been conscious or not, Severus was unsure, but at the moment, he found himself unwilling to allow this day to crumble because of it. The boy had died, they had not; there was nothing else to be done for it.

Closing the space between them with a few steps, he wrapped his arms around her, thankful for the ready-made excuse to touch her again. He felt he could not get enough of it. Surprisingly, however, she spoke before he did.

"I hope you understand why I came over…" she murmured quietly, a bit sheepishly against the material of his shirt. "It wasn't to…make you do anything or…obviously, any of what happened-"

The uncertainty and hint of what sounded like shame in her voice was so unlike her and so out of the mood that he interrupted, leaning away to grin softly down at her, tucking a few wild, slept-on curls away from her face.

"Of course, I do," he answered. "I'm glad you did."

Fortunately, the moment passed without lasting effects on her mood, as Jasmine's sweet, excited smile returned to her lips, her hands resting gently on his chest. "Good," she replied. "So, where do you want to go for breakfast?"

Severus let out a low groan and released his hold on her, only to collapse backward onto his cushy, unmade bed with a slight bounce. " _Go?"_ he repeated, bringing both fists up to rub his eyes. "I'm not going anywhere today." He then lifted only his head to look down at Jasmine where she still stood at the foot of the bed, grinning at him. "You're not either as far as I'm concerned."

Finally, Jasmine took the hint and let out a giggle as she leaned forward to climb up the bed toward his face, where she plopped down onto her side next to him. Her fingers threaded into the top of his soft hair and his eyes closed with a content grumble, basking in the touch which she could so freely lavish upon him now.

"I like that idea," she replied gently.

After a delicious, filling breakfast (it was more toward lunch at the time but neither cared), Jasmine took their empty containers into the kitchen to the garbage and returned a moment later, smirking at him cheekily.

"So, do I get to see the secret magic lab now?" she asked, leaning against the corner of the wall to the hallway. She shrugged one shoulder, her grin expanding to show teeth. "I mean…you _have_ seen me naked…"

Again, Severus felt his now comfortably full stomach give a lurch, remembering the first moment he had removed her tank top from her and the beautiful, perfect breasts he had revealed to himself. He smirked, rising from the couch to join her at the entrance to the hall leading to his lab and bedroom. Jasmine did not back away from him but merely tilted her head further back to continue watching him as he approached, a vague flush of pink rising in her cheeks.

"Indeed," he finally responded, resting one hand on the wall beside her head. "I did. But in fairness, you _also_ saw _me_ naked…"

At this, Jasmine let out a short laugh and patted him on the arm, nodding her head in a mockingly solemn sort of way. "Which is why you should probably let me see the lab."

Severus burst into one of his genuine laughs, his hand sliding from the wall to his side lamely as he took a step back from her. Jasmine joined him in laughing, immediately taking a step forward to wrap her arms around his middle.

"I'm kidding!" she squealed, giggling and struggling to hug him as he playfully pushed her away. "I'm just kidding, you're beautiful!"

Severus quieted and shook his head, clearing his throat as he pried her off of him. "Alright, alright!" he groaned with a roll of his eyes. "Rude."

Jasmine bounced slightly as she followed him to the door, only to smile up at the side of his face when he laughed again under his breath at her joke. A content sigh followed.

"Ah, I like you," he breathed as the door opened in front of him.

At first glance, all Jasmine could see was an ordinary room, not even a bedroom. Just an empty room containing a simple, clearly unused desk, which sat neatly in the corner. A tall lamp sat in there as well, but everything about it, even down to the carpet, was plain. She shrugged glancing up at him.

"So…" she began, but the corners of Severus' eyes had begun to wrinkle. He nodded his head once more at the inside of the room, from where he stood holding the door open.

"Look again."

She had only looked away from it for an instant, but as she turned her gaze once more, it seemed as though the plain room had been melted away entirely, absolutely no evidence of it whatsoever. What she found instead was a large stone entrance hallway of sorts, dark, lit only by a few guttering candles in brackets along the wall. She gasped, taking a step forward and jumping when her bare feet met a cold, very real, stone floor. After a quick glance down, she turned her head to look up at him, eyes huge.

"But how?" she asked. "The building people don't know this is here?"

Smirking, Severus took a step forward into the cool, somehow breezy hallway beside her, once again loving how continuously impressed she was by his magic.

"It is known as an Undetectable Extension Charm," he explained. "Wizards can't open it and Muggles can't see it. It doesn't exist on any blueprint or diagram of the building."

Jasmine shook her head, reaching out a finger to trace the natural divots in the stone wall as they passed along the short hallway. "So, how was I able to see it?" she asked, voice echoing vaguely. They came to a stop at the end of the hall, where she paused long enough for her jaw to fall open.

"Because I made it so."

The room was massive, bigger by far than two of the existing bedrooms put together. The ceiling rose high above their heads by at least ten or more feet, solid, heavy-looking beams of dark wood meeting at strategic angles to form rafters. What they were meant to support, she could not exactly wrap her mind around, but she skipped past this detail without much difficulty. She had experienced enough magic over the past several months to train and reprogram her mind to simply accept, not question; marvel at things instead of dissecting them.

More bracketed candles hung around the walls, flickering and adding their glow to the few magically lit lamps standing on work surfaces and desks, bookshelves and the mantlepiece of one ancient-looking fireplace. It was already lit and crackling mildly in the grate, as though it had been lit earlier in the day and maintained, which of course, she knew it had not. Turning her head once again, she shook it back and forth slowly as she looked up at him. He merely blinked down at her in response to meeting her eyes, having been watching her take in the sight of his inner sanctum.

"This is incredible," she said quietly before inhaling a breath through her nose. The familiar scent of Severus filled her senses, despite him standing beside her, and at once, she realized that this was where he must spend the majority of his time alone. The smoky, deep scent of something woodsy, a warm herb or spice like clove or anise, perhaps? Or maybe a magical herb or spice completely unknown to her. Without waiting for a response, she stepped forward into the immense room at last, her eyes trained on a long, illuminated table in the middle.

Severus followed, glancing around with a touch of a prideful smirk on his features. "Thank you," he replied. "I'm rather impressed with it myself. It is an extraordinary bit of magic, if I do say so."

While listening, Jasmine had been distracted in full by the sight of six perfectly spherical, shiny, black stones floating in midair above the wooden surface. Approaching them, she came to a halt at the edge of the desk, forcing herself to keep her hands at her sides and not _touch_ anything…despite how badly she might want to…

Severus seemed to understand her desire as he chuckled from somewhere behind her, one large hand coming to rest on the curve of her waist. "That," he began, applying gentle pressure and leading her away at the hip. "-is a bit of a work in progress. A dangerous one, I might add."

Jasmine's eyebrows contracted as she looked up at him in both confusion and interest and Severus could not help but let out another short laugh at her expression. Who could have predicted she would want to touch and know the purpose to everything in there?

"It will eventually be a centrifuge of sorts," he explained, his smirk expanding as they meandered toward his main, tall workbench. "Currently, it is a homemade slingshot."

He picked up a metal watering can and turned it to show her the large, bent divot in the side and the perfect, circular indent a previous stone had left. She snorted a quiet giggle but seemed to be noticing that mingled among the apparently ordinary desk detritus was scattered an assortment of magical items. There were bent, broken and crushed bits of herbs, silver instruments like knives and tweezers, even a pair of hemostats. But he also had a jar of beetle eyes out, which he grinned at fondly, wondering if she would be squeamish toward some of his nastier potion ingredients. However, Jasmine seemed most intrigued by the bowl of what appeared to be swirling, silvery smoke and nothing more. No embers, nothing smoldering, just a steady, coiling stream of lightly scented smoke. He watched her stare at it, her gaze faraway and wistful, a soft smile playing with her lips. It was only ever-burning incense, but Severus did not want to spoil it for her, if she was imagining some ingenious, magical instrument with which he could see into another world or something. It was just too…cute.

He remained silent as he followed her throughout the room, keeping a subtle distance between them, not wanting to distract, every now and again stepping in to explain something when she gave him an inquisitive look or asked a question. Her bubbly, giggly mood from earlier seemed to have calmed a bit after she had eaten and especially once he had brought her here, allowed her the space and time in which to be fully and deeply curious, see and experience his most personal space. He wondered if it had perhaps registered with her his reason in doing so, allowing her to delve more deeply than anyone else in his life.

Jasmine continued, following the rows of bookshelves along the far wall, squealing every now and again when she encountered his jars of preserved dead things, cockroaches and particularly disgusting substances. He shrugged, laughing as she folded her arms across her middle with a shudder and continued moving toward the massive, inset fireplace, large enough that she could have easily walked inside it.

"I told you I'm a Potions Master," he reminded her, once more shadowing her footsteps.

Jasmine shook her head somewhat distractedly, eyes huge as she approached his most trusted, oldest and perfect cauldron, large enough, again, that she could have easily climbed into it. For a moment, Severus wondered with a chuckle if perhaps she was thinking of doing that exact thing, as she reached out and placed both of her hands on either edge of it to peer down inside. Against himself, he quickly reached out and rapped once, hard on the empty metal with his knuckles. Jasmine sprang back with a squeak as it rang loudly like a gong, echoing against the stone floor beneath it as it hung suspended on the air without tangible support.

"Sorry," he said with a grin, shrugging his shoulders as Jasmine glared playfully at him and massaged her ears. "Couldn't resist. Although-" He paused to frown and point a finger at the cauldron beside him. "-you really shouldn't go sticking your head inside cauldrons. I'm not brewing anything now, but I will be at some point in the future."

At some point…in the future.

Severus blinked as that thought reached him, the words having left his mouth before he could hesitate to consider what it meant; this was not the last time Jasmine would be with him in his lab. Obviously, he hoped that this was something she had already considered, the fact that she would be spending more time at his place, with him, on a more private level but…he did not have to come right out and bring attention to it.

However, if Jasmine found anything odd with what he had said, or had any issue with it, she did not act like it, as she merely smiled up at him, rubbing her arms despite the fire behind them.

"Noted," she finally replied, her nose wrinkling a bit as she rose quickly onto her tiptoes to peck a light kiss on his neck. Severus withheld a shiver at the gentle affection, instead draping his arm about her shoulders to lead her from his lab, extinguishing the lights behind them with a wave of his hand.

As they stepped out into the hallway, both blinked furiously as their eyes adjusted to the sunlight in sharp contrast to the dark, lamp-lit room they had just been in. The time must have been approaching late afternoon as the sun had begun taking on a golden tone, shimmering through the patio doors into the living room, tiny particles of dust floating lazily through the beams. Jasmine turned to face him, her arms still folded across the discarded shirt of his she had put on earlier.

"Do you mind if I shower?" she asked suddenly, catching Severus slightly off-guard as he had honestly not even considered the fact that she might like to wash up. Especially since he was sort of holding her captive at his apartment…not that she seemed to have any inclination whatsoever to leave.

With a gentle smirk, he nodded his head toward the end of the hall, where his bathroom door stood open just inside the bedroom. "Not at all," he replied. "It's through here."

Jasmine waited just outside the door while Severus waved a hand to start the warm water running, watching him with a peaceful expression as he conjured three fluffy, white towels from thin air with a twitch of his wand. With a quick kiss on her temple, he left the bedroom entirely, shutting the door behind him to grant her as much privacy as she liked, for as long as she liked.

When she emerged from the shower nearly a half hour later, steam rose up from her skin in little coils and spirals, rising from her scalp, through her curls to escape, keeping her warm, though she hardly needed it. Unsurprisingly, everything about Severus' bathroom was magical or enchanted, even down to the warmed tiles beneath her feet. The towels he had magicked into existence before his departure might have only just been pulled from a dryer, despite how long ago they had appeared. She wrapped one of them about her chest, another across her shoulders and rolled her hair up into the third, sighing comfortably as she looked up into the mirror over the counter and sink.

It was impossible not to smile at herself.

Minutes ago, in the shower, she had run her hands over her naked body to wash it, taking great lungfuls of the scent of his soap and shampoo. It was completely natural, and he made it himself, Jasmine had come to find out. She positively adored the smell of it and wondered if she dare ask whether he could make some for her as well next time. With an excited giggle, she turned from the mirror once more to finish drying and hurry through getting dressed so she could go find him. Perhaps a nap would be in order.

When she emerged from the bathroom wearing a pair of her shorts he had brought her the previous night and a black t-shirt she had found in his bathroom closet, she half expected to find him already asleep on the couch. Instead, her insides gave a pleasant little squirm when he appeared at the end of the hall, stepping out of the kitchen with a glass of water in his hand. He had just brought it to his lips to take a sip when he noticed her. His eyebrows relaxed in playful exasperation as he swallowed and motioned his glass toward the shirt she was wearing.

"So, this is how it works, then?" he asked, dark eyes twinkling as he teased her. "You come over, demand a bed, food, a hot shower and then wear _my_ clothes-" He paused to scoff indignantly when she pulled the glass of water from his fingers to take a sip. "- drink _my_ water…"

Jasmine giggled through her nose as she struggled to swallow the water in her mouth without spitting it all over him. Severus grinned at this, accepting the glass back as she nodded.

"Yep," she answered simply, closing the space between them to slide her arms once more around his middle, resting her chin on his chest to gaze up at him. "Better get used to it, Prince."

It was Severus' turn to shower and not a moment too soon, as he felt quite dirty and unbathed. Especially after Jasmine had appeared after hers, looking so refreshed and comfortable, smelling like his own personal soap and glowing beautifully. He could have stood in the hallway for another hour simply inhaling her but felt it would probably be a better use of his time to go take his own shower.

Despite the icky feeling of not bathing for such a long time after a shift, everything else about Severus' body felt fantastic that day. He had slept so well, for obvious reasons, felt much less tense, for obvious reasons, and happier, _much_ happier, again for what he felt were very obvious reasons. The conversation about their feelings must still happen, he knew that, but somehow, he felt it would be much easier now versus before, when he could barely touch her hair without second-guessing himself. Now, he could hold her soft hands in his, actually look at her while he confessed how long it had been that he had fostered feelings for her. And yet-

 _"Better get used to it, Prince."_

As Severus stood naked beneath the streams of water, thoughts of what Jasmine had just said to him echoed in his recent memories, his heart rate quickening. Would she be expecting him to make something concrete of their relationship? Certainly, she would, seeing how they had been such close friends for so long, now were finally intimate and clearly a bit mad for each other. Didn't it make sense that they should be…what was it called…dating?

As this word fluttered through his spinning thoughts, he felt a twist of discomfort. If he was being honest with himself, _and_ Jasmine, he had never had what he would consider a 'girlfriend' before. Even the word itself made him feel…weird, or something. He briefly imagined a scenario in which he would have to introduce Jasmine as such, and even in his mind, it sounded wrong, felt wrong, to call her his- 'that' word. He had referred to her as his best friend privately for so long that anything else just did not seem to fit her.

Either way, regardless of what he ended up calling her, he felt he would have to bring it up some way or another, ask her what it was she wanted, discuss what their next steps should be. He wanted to do this in whatever fashion she desired, as long as it made her- both of them- happy and at ease.

 _However…_

None of this meant he was not going to be nervous and probably awkward about it.

After washing his hair and body and rinsing completely, Severus stepped out of the shower, smirking to himself as he imagined what he would find Jasmine doing when he walked out to the living room. He knew she would have found something to occupy herself, as his bookshelves were loaded with interesting books, both Muggle and Magical, and she had not yet been given free time alone in his apartment to peruse his collection.

Therefore, it came as a surprise when he entered the living room ten minutes later to find that Jasmine had not been snooping his books at all, but rather, had curled up on his couch on her side, hands tucked beneath her chin and was deeply asleep. The one sip of water from his glass had apparently been insufficient, forcing to retrieve her own, as he noticed a half-drunk glass sitting on a coaster atop the wooden coffee table. His smirk expanded as he moved further into the room quietly, glancing up at the glass doors to the patio and darkening sky beyond as a low rumble of thunder rolled along in the distance. The wand in his hand gave a flick and a deep, hunter green thermal blanket popped into existence, floating above Jasmine's sleeping figure.

Perhaps they could have that conversation later, Severus thought, draping the blanket over her. Perhaps they could take as long as they wanted, figure things out gradually. All Severus knew was that his instincts were once again telling him not to worry, not to stress, to trust that things would work perfectly. So, he listened; something at which he had been getting very good over the past year, if he did say so himself. Look at what it had brought him, he reflected, gazing affectionately at her peaceful form, asleep on his couch. Following his instincts had yet to steer him wrong.

…..

When Jasmine woke a pair of hours later, it was not the warmth of the blanket atop her, nor the pounding of heavy rain just outside the windows that her brain registered first. It was the mouth-watering, stomach-awakening scent of cooking food that reached her before anything else. She hummed in utmost content as she rolled onto her stomach from her side, stretching her legs out as far as they could along Severus' long couch. After a heavy breath to fill and empty her sleepy lungs and pump oxygen to her brain, she finally turned her head and opened her eyes. Her expression relaxed as her vision focused.

A beautiful but magically cooled fire crackled in the grate across the living room from her while rain poured steadily away beyond the patio. And toward the head of the couch sat Severus in a matching armchair, looking supremely handsome, sitting there in the glow of the fireplace and a few dim electric overhead track lights. He was reading something so intently, it did not seem as though it had registered with him that she was awake yet, so she took that moment to study him.

As usual, his brow was furrowed as he read, the shadows from his reading glasses deepening the lines between his eyebrows. His hair had been left loose to air dry after his shower and lay over his shoulders, shorter pieces falling into his face or otherwise pushed behind his ears. Black eyes scanned the pages of the book in his hands with dizzying rapidity, gliding back and forth with what seemed like very little effort. His posture was comfortable and slightly slouched, one ankle propped atop his opposite knee, elbows rested on either armrest.

Though she had made no noise while observing him, Severus looked up from reading after another few moments, his pensive scowl relaxing once he noticed that she had woken and was watching silently from the couch. Most of the lower half of her face was obscured by blanket, but as he smiled, she returned it in earnest, sure he could tell by the little creases next to her eyes.

"Hello," he greeted her simply, closing his book after dog-earring the top corner of his page. "Nice nap?"

Jasmine nodded, stifling a yawn behind her blanketed hands.

"What smells good?" she asked abruptly, her voice somewhat coarse and raspy with residual sleepiness, her stomach prickling with the beginning stages of hunger.

Severus inhaled a deep breath, looking a bit sheepish as he leaned forward to place his abandoned book on the coffee table, next to a previously unnoticed, half-drunk glass of whiskey. His reading glasses followed suit before he turned his head to look at her.

"Well, you fell asleep, so I figured I'd go to your place, get you a few things and…perhaps raid your freezer for dinner," he concluded, shrugging as innocently as he could manage while looking like a Disney villain.

Jasmine giggled, finally moving the blanket away from her face and shoulders. "Oh, did you?" she asked playfully, her eyebrows rising in mock surprise. "Get me a few things, huh? I guess I'm not going home anytime soon then."

Severus' thin but exquisitely drawn lips curved into a gentle smirk, eyes sparkling with a joy she had not seen there thus far, in all the time she had known him. He shook his head a moment later.

"Not if I've got anything to do with it."

…..

After a dinner of freezer pizza Severus had grabbed at random during his 'supermarket sweep' of her apartment, he found himself rested contentedly on the couch once again. Jasmine had settled to be lying with her head and upper body draped across his lap, eyes closed and basking in his touch as he stroked her hair away from her face, tracing the curls as they spilled over his legs and nearly to the floor. The ministrations stopped occasionally, but only for a few moments at a time, only long enough for him to reach over for his glass of whiskey and take a sip. His other hand, his left, lay rested across her middle, which she clutched gently in her smaller grasp, playing with his fingers.

After nearly twenty full minutes of perfect silence, with only the sound of the crackling fire and pouring, muffled rain outside, Jasmine spoke.

"I really like you, Sev," she commented, in what Severus hoped was a spectacular understatement.

He grunted a laugh, looking down at her as she opened her eyes. "Do you really?" he asked sarcastically, smirking when she frowned up at him.

"I'm serious!" she exclaimed in her soft voice. "I have for a long time, too…" Her voice trailed as though it was embarrassing her to admit such a thing to him, when he himself was guilty of exactly the same.

Brushing his thumb along her hairline gently, he waited for her to look up at him again before speaking. "What do you think I wanted to talk to you about after work last night?" he asked but did not give her time to answer. "I've felt strongly for you for…longer than I care to admit. I always wanted to tell you but couldn't bring myself to do it. I just assumed you-"

"-you'd never be into someone like me?" She completed his sentence in slightly different terms, but in essence, identically to what he had intended to say. When he nodded slowly, her eyes dropped to fidget with her silver, pointer-finger ring. "Yeah, I thought the same thing. But, when you kissed me-"

She closed her eyes momentarily to clasp his hand with both of hers and bring it to her mouth, kissing his fingers a few times. Finishing her sentence was unnecessary; Severus had also experienced the emotional, mind-blowing kiss they had shared in the back hallway, _their_ back hallway, at the hospital the previous night.

After another few moments of watching Jasmine plant playful, soft kisses all over his knuckles, fingers and palm, she pulled his hand away and looked up at him once more.

"So…does this mean we can be together now?" she asked simply.

Severus felt his insides jerk, his heart leaping at the inside of his chest. There it was, the thing his instincts had told him to wait out. He lowered his fingers from her hair to her jawline, tracing it, hesitating. What could he say? The only answer was yes, but-

"Would that make you happy?" he asked, just as simply as she had done before him.

Jasmine sat up, shifting from her back to her knees, before she swung one of them over his legs and settled onto his lap, facing him. Her smile was nearly too immense for her face, her eyes lit up as though fireworks had been set off behind them. She gave a small bounce, her hands resting on his shoulders. She nodded heartily in response to his question.

He arched an eyebrow, attempting one last stern look. "I might be really bad at it," he warned, his look breaking into a grin when Jasmine shook her head.

"Just be nice to me," she replied, leaning forward to kiss him lightly on the cheek, her lips soft and plush against his skin. "That's all there is to it," she then added, in yet another wildly understated claim. Severus may have been new to the whole relationship thing, but he was certain there was much more to it than that.

At this, however, he groaned loudly in false annoyance, dropping his head back to roll his eyes generously.

"Ugh, forget it," he grunted, smirking when Jasmine laughed and leaned forward again, pressing her lips to his.

What began as a gentle kiss evolved rapidly into a tangle of tongues and lips, both growing more breathless with every moment that passed without proper oxygen supply. Severus' greedy hands had found her waist again, long fingers spanning her curves, thoroughly enjoying the way she moved and responded to his touch. She pulled away from his mouth after a few long seconds, opening her eyes briefly to lock gazes with him. Without a word, without having to search her mind for it, Severus could feel what she was attempting to share with him; she was now his and he was now hers.

She leaned toward him once more, pressing her lips against the curve of his neck beneath his jaw, hands trailing along his chest and stomach, his hips bucking slightly in response.

"I think we're gonna like this…"she giggled against his skin.

Now, _that_ was the understatement of the century.

…

A/N: I'm back! I got extremely busy through the latter part of 2019 and obviously through the holidays, so I had ZERO time to write! But I wanted to get this chapter out to you all as things have started leveling out over here for me hehe Thanks so much for reading! I understand this chapter was all very fluffy and cute, but I felt we were long overdue a little true romance between these two. Some very exciting stuff coming up soon, I'm SOOOO excited to bring it to you once it's written! This story just keeps growing with ideas, gotta love it. Hope everyone's 2020 is off to an excellent start!

Of course, reviews are always appreciated but never expected. Private messages are also welcome if you're shy.

"To Heal Himself" IG: qom389


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